Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence of >Biblical Israel·

(continued, Part 2)
By Nadav N a ’aman

(Tel Aviv University)

The House o f Joseph and the Tribe o f Benjamin

What is the basis for the assumption, current in scholarly literature, that
Benjamin was a Northern tribe? The answer is obvious: In biblical his-
toriography Joseph (Gen 30,22-24) and Benjamin (35,16-18) are pres-
ented as brothers, Jacob’s sons by the same mother. Since Joseph’s sons,
in particular Ephraim, played the central role in the Northern Kingdom,
Benjamin was also considered a Northern tribe. However, an examin-
ation of the references to >Joseph/House of Joseph< in the biblical litera-
ture shows clearly that the term refers almost exclusively to Ephraim
and Manasseh, and Benjamin is not part of it.48
In the allocation of tribal inheritances in the Book of Joshua, the
Josephites are mentioned as an entity (Jos 16-17), which at first received
an allotment divided into two portions (Jos 16,1-17,13). They com-
plained to Joshua that despite their large number, they received only a
single allotment, and he advised them to expand both into the forested
hill country and into the surrounding plains inhabited by the Canaanites,
and in this way occupy two allotments (Jos 17,14-20). Benjamin re-
ceived its inheritance only after the more important neighbouring tribes
of Judah and the Josephites had obtained their own (see Jos 18,5b. 11).
Benjamin’s boundary on one side touched the boundary of Judah, and on
the other side that of the Josephites. It is described as an in-between
tribe, unrelated to either of its two territorially larger neighbours.
The conquest of Bethel by the Josephites, excluding Benjamin, is
described in detail in Jud 1,22-26. It is followed by the so-called >list of
conquest lacunae< (Jud 1,21.27—35). The >lacunae< of Ephraim and
Manasseh (vv. 27-29.35) are listed separately from that of Benjamin
(v. 21).

48 For an extensive discussion of the biblical references to Joseph/House of Joseph, see

E. Täubler, Biblische Studien. Die Epoche der Richter, 1958, 197-200; de Geus, The
Tribes of Israel, 69-96; R. de Vaux, The Early History of Israel, 1978, 642-6 4 4 ;
H.-D. Neef, Ephraim. Studien zur Geschichte des Stammes Ephraim von der Land-
nähme bis zur frühen Königszeit, BZAW 238, 1995, passim.

ZAW 121. Bd., S. 3 3 5 -3 4 9 DOI 10.1515/ZAW .2009.023

© Walter de Gruyter 2009
336 Nadav N a ’aman

According to I Reg 11,28, Solomon nominated Jeroboam, the

Ephraimite, as task master »over all the compulsory work of the House
of Joseph«. No wonder, then, that the negotiation and the subsequent
rebellion described in the legendary story of I Reg 12 took place in
Shechem, the centre of the Josephites, and was led by Jeroboam, the
Ephraimite, and the northern elders (i.e., tribal leaders). Unlike the
Josephites, Benjamin did not join the rebellion (I Reg 12,21-24), and by
implication did not participate in the assembly. There is an internal logic
in the way that the compulsory work and the rebellion that followed
are described in chapters 11-12. Solomon’s different attitude towards
the Josephites and Benjaminites, respectively, prefigures the outlines of
the political-territorial division that took place in the 9th-8th centuries
BCE.
In the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49,22-26) and the blessing of Moses
(Dtn 33,13-16) the tribe of Joseph appears side by side with Benjamin
(Gen 49,27; Dtn 33,12). In the prophetic books, the name Joseph/House
of Joseph refers to the Northern Kingdom, which is called by the name
of its most prominent tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh (Ez 37,16.19;
Am 5,6.15; 6,6; Ob 1,18; Zech 10,6). This is also true of the Book of
Psalms, where Joseph appears parallel to Jacob, the ancestral father of
the Northern tribes, or side by side with Judah (Ps 77,16; 78,67-69;
81,5-6; 105,17). Only in Ob 1,17-19 there is a clear distinction be-
tween Judah, including the tribe of Benjamin (v. 19), and the Northern
Kingdom, which is mentioned under different names (House of Joseph,
land of Ephraim, land of Samaria).
Psalm 80, which is clearly dated to the exilic or post-exilic period,
is the only text where Joseph (v. 2) is interchanged with Ephraim, Ben-
jamin and Manasseh (v. 3).49
In a scene in the story of Absalom’s rebellion, Shimei ben Gera, the
Benjaminite, appeared before David, after the latter had crushed the re-
bellion, and pleaded for mercy (II Sam 19,17-21). In v. 19 he addresses
the king as follows: »For your servant knows that he has sinned; so
here I have come down today, the first of all the House of Joseph, to
meet my lord the king«. Shimei and his clan had rebelled against the
king, and in appealing for mercy he presents himself as belonging to the
House of Joseph, the term used here to designate the non-Judahite hill-
country rebels. It must be recalled that among those loyal to David as
well as the rebels were both Judahites and Israelites, so that the division
into the two rival groups —»the men of Israel« and »the men of Judah«
(vv. 10.15-16.41-44) - does not overlap the division between rebels
and loyalists. Rather than indicating the great antiquity of the story, os­

49 Neef, Ephraim, 2 9 9 -3 0 7 , with earlier literature.

 Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence of >Biblical Israel· 337

tensibly reflecting the historical reality of the early monarchical period,

the exceptional use of the term »House of Joseph« to include a Benjami-
nite clan is due to the extraordinary character of the situation as de-
scribed in the story of Absalom’s rebellion.50
The birth story of Jacob’s sons is regarded as an integral part of
the Jacob story cycle and was taken as decisive evidence that Benjamin
was an Israelite tribe in the Northern Kingdom. However, I very much
doubt the assumption that the story of the birth of Jacob’s children
(Gen 29,31-30,24), and the genealogical lists that follow the same
order (Gen 35,23-26; 46,8-25; 49,3-27; Ex 1,2-4; Dtn 27,12-14;
Ez 48,31-35; I Chr 2,2), originated in the Northern Kingdom. The
genealogical list (Noth’s »System A«) opens with four southern tribes:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah.51 The clans of Reuben lived in the
southern margins of the Israelite settlement in Transjordan, Simeon and
Levi dwelt in the southern frontier country and the margins of the high-
lands and the Shephelah, and the clans of Judah lived in the mountain
region and the Shephelah of Judah. A North Israelite author would
have opened the list with the foremost Northern tribes, certainly not
with the names of the southernmost tribes, three of whom lived in the
territory of a neighbouring kingdom. Moreover, the etiological legend
of the birth of Benjamin and the setting of Rachel’s tomb in his territory
(Gen 35,16-20; see 48,7) rests on a local Benjaminite tradition and
depends on the actual site of the tombstone, possibly north of Ramah
(see I Sam 10,2; Jer 31,15). The tombstone was located in Judahite ter-
ritory and the etiological legend must have originated in Benjamin. The
assumed North Israelite origin of the birth legends of the twelve tribes
in Gen 29,31-30,24 and 35,16-20 is unconvincing. Rather, the legend
and the lists that open with four south-Palestinian tribes and conclude
with a north Judahite tribe (Benjamin) were probably the work of Juda-
hite authors who combined some old memories within a scheme that
was formed according to the concept of the twelve as an embodiment of
the unity of the Israelite nation.
The name Benjamin (»son of the south«) must have originated as a
tribal name, the Benjaminites being the southernmost clans of those that
settled in the central hill country in the Iron Age I. The tomb of Rachel
was located south of the Benjamin-Ephraim border and probably repre­

50 Contra C.H J. de Geus, The Tribes of Israel. An Investigation into Some o f the Presup-
positions of Martin N o th ’s Amphictyony Hypothesis, Studia Semítica Neerlandica 18,
1976, 8 6 -8 7 , 9 5 -9 6 (citation from p. 86).
51 M. N oth, Das System der Z w ölf Stämme Israels, BWANT IV/1, 1930, 6-16; H. Weip-
pert, Das geographische System der Stämme Israels, VT 23 (1973), 76-78; de Geus,
The Tribes of Israel, 7 0 -7 3 . For a somewhat different conclusions, see K. Namiki, Re-
consideration of the Twelve-Tribe System of Israel, AJBI 2 (1976), 2 9 -5 6 .
338 Nadav N a ’aman

sented the antiquity of the tradition of the two tribes’ common ancestry.
Oral memories of the early relations between Ephraim and Benjamin in
the pre-monarchical period must have dictated the way that they were
presented in the birth legend in the Book of Genesis. But the reality of
the pre-monarchical period had faded when the biblical works were put
in writing. Biblical literature, including the historiography, the proph-
ecy and the psalms, was written at a relatively late date, no earlier than
the late 8th century, and it reflects the reality of the monarchical period,
when the district of Benjamin was an integral part of the kingdom of
Judah. No wonder that most of the biblical references to >Joseph/House
of Joseph< indicate the severance, rather than brotherhood, between
Benjamin and its two northern >brothers<, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Bethel and Judah’s Northern Border in the Late Monarchical Period

In his seminal study of the southern town lists in the Book of Joshua,
Alt proposed that the town lists of the four southern tribes of Judah,
Benjamin, Simeon and Dan (Jos 15,21-62; 18,21—28; 19,2-8.40-46)
belonged to King Josiah’s time.52 He argued that the town list of Benja-
min includes towns like Bethel, Zemaraim, Ophrah and Jericho that
were part of the kingdom of Israel until its conquest by Assyria and
were annexed by Judah in Josiah’s reign. The list of Benjaminite towns
in Jos 18,21-28 is made up of two groups: cities belonging to Judah for
many years (vv. 25-28), and former Israelite cities annexed by Josiah
after he invaded the territory of Israel and destroyed the cult centre of
Bethel (vv. 21-24; see II Reg 23,15-16a).53 This date has been accepted
by other scholars,54 and the present writer has offered additional argu-
ments in its favour.55
As noted in the introduction, Davies suggested that the district of
Benjamin, including the area of Bethel, was granted by Sargon to Judah

52 A. Alt, Judas Gaue unter Josia, PJb 21 (1925), 1 0 6 -1 1 2 (reprint: Kleine Schriften zur
Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 1953, 2 7 9 -2 8 4 ).
53 For a discussion of the destruction of Bethel temple see: H.W. Wolff, Das Ende des Hei-
ligtums in Bethel, in: A. Kuschke and E. Kutsch (eds.), Archäologie und Altes Testa-
ment. Festschrift für Kurt Galling, 1970, 2 8 7 -2 9 8 .
54 O. Proksch, König Josia, in Festgabe für Theodor Zahn, 1928, 4 5 -4 6 ; M. N oth, Das
Buch Josua, 2 nd revised ed., HAT 1/7, 1953, 13-14; idem, The History of Israel,
2 7 3 -2 7 4 ; P. Welten, Die Königs-Stempel. Ein Beitrag zur Militärpolitik Judas unter
Hiskia und Josia, 1969, 93-1 0 2 ; J.A. Soggin, A History of Israel: from the Beginnings
to the Bar Kochba Revolt, AD 135, 1984, 245.
55 N . N a ,aman, The Kingdom of Judah under Josiah, Tel Aviv 18 (1991), 5 -3 3 . A slightly
revised and updated version o f the article was published in: L.L. Grabbe (ed.), Good
Kings and Bad Kings, JSOT.S 393, 2005, 19 1 -2 1 0 .
 Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence o f >Biblical Israel· 339

after the founding of the province of Samaria in 720 BCE.56 If accepted,

this suggestion would undermine the foundation of Alt’s thesis on the
date of the town lists in Joshua. Davies has provided no evidence to sup-
port his historical reconstruction. The inscriptions of Sargon II (721-705)
mention some episodes in which he granted territories to loyal vassals,
so Davies’ suggestion is theoretically possible.57 However, as all the
kingdoms that seemingly received such territories were soon afterwards
accused of disloyalty and annexed to Assyria, a grant of territories
appears more like a justification for annexation than an act of good
will and reward for loyalty. Moreover, following Hezekiah’s rebellion
against Assyria, Sennacherib led an extremely destructive campaign
against the rebellious kingdom. He punished it by severing its western
districts and allocating them to the neighbouring Philistine kingdoms.58
Consequently, even if we may theoretically assume that some North
Israelite territories were granted to Judah after 720 BCE, it is unlikely
that they remained in its possession following Hezekiah’s rebellion in
701 BCE.
Knauf has suggested that the district of Benjamin, including Bethel,
was given by Assyria to Judah in the reign of Manasseh, as a reward
for his long-standing loyalty.591 have already demonstrated that most of
the district of Benjamin was part of the kingdom of Judah in the mon-
archical period. Moreover, Bethel was an important administrative and
cult centre of the Northern Kingdom from its foundation, and must
have retained its importance in the Assyrian province of Samaria (see
II Reg 17,28). At no time in the past were Bethel and its district part of
the kingdom of Judah - why then would an Assyrian king detach this
important administrative and cult centre from the province of Samaria
and attach it to a neighbouring vassal kingdom? The suggestion that
Bethel was granted by Assyria to either Ahaz (Davies) or Manasseh
(Knauf) as a reward for loyalty is, in my opinion, highly unlikely. We
should follow Alt’s suggestion, which is also supported by the archae-
ological evidence from the district of Benjamin and the area north of it
(see above), and assume that the area of Bethel was annexed to the king-
dom of Judah after the Assyrian retreat from Palestine, probably in the
620s BCE.

56 Davies, Trouble with Benjamin, 103.

57 See for example: A.G. Lie, The Inscriptions of Sargon II King of Assyria. Part I: The
Annals Transliterated and Translated with Notes, 1929, 3 2 -3 3 lines 1 9 6 -1 9 8 , 3 4 -3 5
lines 2 0 5 -2 0 7 , 3 6 -3 7 lines 2 2 0 -2 2 1 , 70-71 line 1; A. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II.
aus Khorsabad, 1994, 124 lines 1 9 6 -1 9 8 , 126 lines 2 0 5 -2 0 7 , 128 lines 2 2 0 -2 2 1 , 177
lines 3 9 8 -4 0 0 .
58 M. Cogan, Sennacherib’s Siege of Jerusalem (2 .1 19B), in COS II, 303.
59 Knauf, Bethel, 2 9 5 -2 9 7 , 3 1 4 -3 1 6 .
340 Nadav N a ’aman

Is it possible that Bethel is the missing link in the transmission of

Israelite traditions to the kingdom of Judah? Recently some scholars
have suggested that following the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE,
Bethel became the central cult place of the Babylonian province of
Yehud, and that parts of the biblical historiography were composed
there. Later, when Jerusalem was built and restored as the province’s
capital, these works were transferred to the new capital and formed part
of the comprehensive composition of the history of Israel.60 A settle-
ment at Bethel in the 6th century is nowhere explicitly mentioned in
the Bible,61 but a 5th century settlement is presupposed by Ezr 2,28;
Neh 7,31; 11,31.
The excavators at Bethel suggested that there was continuity in the
site from the early Iron Age until the second half of the 6th century
BCE.62 However, Holladay, who examined the pottery published in the
reports, noted that pottery of the 6th century was missing from the
archaeological reports of the excavations;63 and Finkelstein suggested
that the list of returnees in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 represents the reality
of the Hasmonaean period, and that Bethel was deserted in the Persian

60 For the suggestion that Bethel was an important cult and scribal centre in the exilic and
early post-exilic periods, see T. Veijola, Verheißung in der Krise. Studien zur Literatur
und Theologie der Exilzeit anhand des 89. Psalms, Helsinki 1982, 176-210;
J. Schwartz, Jubilees, Bethel and the Temple of Jacob, HUCA 56 (1985), 74-81;
J. Blenkinsopp, The Judaean Priesthood during the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid
Periods: A Hypothetical Reconstruction, CBQ 60 (1998), 2 5 -4 3 ; idem, Bethel in the
Neo-Babylonian Period, in: O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the
Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, 2003, 9 3-107; de Pury, Le cycle de Jacob,
237 -2 4 1 ; A. Rofé, The History of Israelite Religion and the Biblical Text. Corrections
Due to the Unification of Worship, in: S.M. Paul, R.A. Kraft and L.H. Schiffman (eds.),
Emanuel. Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in H onor of Ema-
nuel Tov, 2003, 7 8 1 -793; J.F. Gomes, The Sanctuary o f Bethel and the Configuration
of Israelite Identity, BZAW 368, 2006, 185-223; Knauf, Deuteronomistic Histori-
ography, 396; idem, Bethel, 2 9 1 -3 4 9 , with earlier literature.
61 The text of Zech 7,2 is debated among scholars, and the interpretation of Bethel as the
subject of the sentence is by no means certain. In addition to the commentaries see: Vei-
jola, Verheißung, 194-196; Blenkinsopp, Judaean Priesthood, 32-33; Knauf, Bethel,
306 n. 77; Y. Hoffmann, The Fasts in the Book of Zechariah and the Fashioning of
National Identity, in: Lipschits and Blenkinsopp, Judah and the Judeans, 2 0 0 -2 0 2 .
62 L.A. Sinclair suggested that there was a substantial continuity of occupation in Bethel
in the 6th century BCE. See idem, Bethel Pottery of the Sixth Century B.C., in: J.L. Kelso,
The Excavation of Bethel (1934 -1 9 6 0 ), AASOR 39, 1968, 7 0 -7 6 . See also O. Lip-
schits, The History of the Benjamin Region under Babylonian Rule, Tel Aviv 26 (1999),
1 7 1 -1 7 2 , with earlier literature.
63 J.S. Holladay, in W.G. Dever, Archaeological Methods and Results: A Review of Two
Recent Publications, Orientalia 40 (1971), 4 6 8 -4 6 9 .
 Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence of >Biblical Israel· 341

period.64 We may recall that only a limited area of the ancient site was
unearthed and that the location of the temple is unknown, so the
6th century settlement and cult place were probably built in other parts
of the tell. Moreover, the 6th‫־‬early 5th century was a period of wide-
spread decline in the urban culture all over Palestine and it is difficult to
isolate the findings of this relatively short, transitional period. This is
especially true of highlands tells, where the bedrock is high and later
construction and levelling might have removed the inferior buildings of
this period and scattered the pottery away from its original location. We
must therefore be cautious in drawing conclusions on the basis of
negative evidence alone. No destruction layer was found in the exca-
vations of the late Iron Age stratum at Bethel, unlike many sites in the
kingdom of Judah where destruction layers were detected in the exca-
vations. The city, in particular the temple and the surrounding area,
probably continued to be inhabited after the administrative centre
moved from Jerusalem to Mizpah, but the available archaeological evi-
dence cannot determine the scope and nature of the 6th century settle-
ment and its place in the new province’s cult and administration.
Scholars have brought up some evidence - admittedly of varying
strength and nature - for the rise of Bethel as a cult centre after the
downfall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.65 To the accumulated evidence pro-
posed so far I would like to add new, and in my opinion crucial, data. In
a recently published article, Hurowitz has demonstrated that »the ac-
count of Jacob’s dream contains hardly a detail without some promi-
nent linguistic or thematic parallel to Babylon in general and the myth
of its primeval foundation in particular.« He therefore concluded that
the Bethel legend in Gen 28,10-22 »is a clear example of appropriating
traditions of one city and applying them to another.«66 Hurowitz logi-
cally dated the composition of Jacob’s dream to the time when the Baby-
Ionian empire dominated the ancient Near East, and Babylon, with
M arduk’s temple of Esaggil at its centre, was the most prominent city in
the empire. The transfer of the literary motifs from Babylon to Bethel in-
dicates its importance at the time, and it should be taken as the strongest
available evidence of the importance of the city in the 6th century BCE.
In this light we may suggest that 6th century Bethel might have
played an important role in the process of integrating the Northern
traditions with the scribal traditions of Judah. However, the name Israel
for the peoples of the two kingdoms is pre-exilic, and must have ante­

64 I. Finkelstein, Archaeology and the List of Returnees in the Books o f Ezra and Nehe-
miah, PEQ 140 (2008), 1-10.
65 See above, note 61.
66 V.A. Hurowitz, Babylon in Bethel - N ew Light on Jacob’s Dream, in: S.W. H olloway
(ed.), Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible, 2006, 4 3 6 -4 4 8 (citations from p. 443).
342 Nadav N a ’aman

dated the assumed revival of the cult centre of Bethel and its develop-
ment as a centre of scribal activity in the Babylonian province of Yehud
in the 6th century. We must look for another solution for the emergence
of the name Israel in Judahite historiography of the late monarchical
period.

Pre-Denteronomistic Story Cycles on

and the Emergence o f >Biblical Israel·
The thesis that I will try to defend is that the composition of the pre-
Deuteronomistic story cycles of Saul, David and Solomon, with the de-
scription of the rise of the monarchy in a territory that was much larger
than that of the kingdom of Judah, was the first step in the emergence
of >biblical Israel·. My discussion will focus on the histories of Saul and
David, the one of Benjamin and the other of Judah. The early story cycle
rests on folktale and poetry transmitted orally for many generations in
the kingdom of Judah and put in writing not before the late 8th century
BCE.67 It describes in great detail the struggle for the throne between
the two protagonists, and the establishment of David’s dynasty in the
capital city of Jerusalem. It was the Deuteronomist who expanded the
material by editing it, adding »historical· records to the story cycle so as
to provide a detailed account of the foundation of monarchy in Israel,
and composed it as a link in the long chain of the history of Israel, from
the entrance to Canaan until the reform of King Josiah.
My evaluation of the pre-Deuteronomistic story cycle of Saul and
David is close to that of scholars who categorized it as traditional heroic
literature,68 dismissed the idea that it was political propaganda or

67 For suggested criteria to differentiate texts that rest on oral literature from texts that
were first composed in writing, see F. Polak, The Oral and the Written: Syntax, Sty-
listics and the Development of Biblical Prose Narrative, JANES 26 (1999), 59-105;
idem, The Style of the Dialogue in Biblical Prose Narrative, JANES 23 (2001), 5 3-95;
idem, Style is More than one Person: Sociolinguistics, Literary Culture, and the Dis-
tinction between Written and Oral Narrative, in: I. Young (ed.), Studies in Chronology
and Typology, JSOTSup 369, 2003, 38-1 0 3 ; idem, Sociolinguistics: A Key to the Ty-
pology and the Social Background of Biblical Hebrew, Hebrew Studies 4 7 (2006),
115-162; idem, Linguistic and Stylistic Aspects of Epic Formulae in Ancient Semitic
Poetry and Biblical Narrative, in: S.E. Fassberg and A. Hurvitz (eds.), Biblical Hebrew
in Its Northwest Semitic Setting. Typological and Historical Perspectives, 2006,
2 8 5 -3 0 4 .
68 For discussion and earlier literature, see A. de Pury and T. Römer (eds.), Die soge-
nannte Thronfolgegeschichte Davids. Neue Ansichten und Anfragen, OBO 176, 2000;
S. Isser, The Sword o f Goliath. David in Heroic Literature, 2003; D.A. Bosworth,
Evaluating King David: Old Problems and Recent Scholarship, CBQ 68 (2006),
191-210.
 Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence of >Biblical Israel· 343

apologia, and avoided attributing to it an extreme bias.69 Let me open

the discussion by examining briefly the widely-accepted classification of
the story cycle as apologetics.70
The biblical stories about the rise of David and Solomon to the
throne has been compared to royal apologetics written in other king‫־‬
doms in the ancient Near East to justify the circumstances of their
rulers’ coming to power (e.g., the apologetics of Telepinu, Idrimi, Hat-
tushili III, Esarhaddon, Nabonidus and Xerxes).71 However, the literary
character of the story of the rise of David and Solomon to the throne
differs considerably from the works with which it has been compared -
the others are all royal inscriptions, addressed to the deity and to the
educated elite, designed to justify the king’s actions. The ancient Near
Eastern apologetics did not differ from other royal inscriptions in which
a king reported to the deity what he had done under the divine mandate
given to him when he ascended the throne. These inscriptions are there-
fore quite unlike the biblical historiography, which addressed a human
readership, rather than the God of Israel. Moreover, the kingdoms in
which those apologetics were written had a long-standing literary tradi-
tion, a social elite and circles of writers capable of reading the inscrip-
tions and absorbing their messages. There is no basis for the assumption

69 David M. Gunn suggested that the story was told for the purpose o f »serious enter-
tainment«. See idem, The Story of King David. Genre and Interpretation, JSOTSup 6,
1978, 2 1 -2 6 , 3 7 - 3 9 ,6 1 - 6 2 . For further discussion, see idem, Entertainment, Ideology,
and the Reception o f >History<: >David’s Jerusalem< as a Question of Space, in
S.M. Olyan and R.C. Culley (eds.), »A Wise and Discerning Mind«. Essays in H onor of
Burke O. Long, Brown Judaic Studies 325, 2000, 15 3 -1 6 1 . However, the story has
more than entertainment value, and the search for the past, as well as the antiquarian
interest, should be included in the definition of the story cycles.
70 P.K. McCarter, The Apology of David, JBL 99 (1980), 4 8 9 -5 0 4 ; idem, The Historical
David, Interpretation 40 (1986), 117-119; K.W. Whitelam, The Defence of David,
JSOT 29 (1984), 61 -8 7 ; S.L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography, 2000, 2 5 -46;
B. Halpern, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King, 2001, 7 3 -1 0 3 .
Marsha White suggested that the pre-Deuteronomistic history of Saul was also an
apologia; see idem, >The History of SauPs Rise<: Saulide State Propaganda in 1 Sa-
muel 1 -1 4 , in: Olyan and Culley (eds.), »A Wise and Discerning M ind«, 2 7 1 -2 9 2 .
71 H.A. Hoffner, Propaganda and Political Justification in Hittite Historiography, in:
H. Goedicke and J.J.M. Roberts (eds.), Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Lit-
erature and Religion of the Ancient Near East, 1975, 4 9 -6 2 ; McCarter, Apology of
David, 49 3 -4 9 9 ; H. Tadmor, Autobiographical Apology in the Royal Assyrian Litera-
ture, in: H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld (eds.), History, Historiography and Interpre-
tation. Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures, 1983, 36-57; Whitelam, Defence
of David, 71-76; M.B. Dick, The >History o f David’s Rise to Power< and the Neo-Baby-
Ionian Succession Apology, in: B.F. Batto and K.L. Roberts (eds.), David and Zion. Bib-
lical Studies in Honor of J.J.M. Roberts, 2004, 3-20; Finkelstein and Silberman, David
and Solomon, 85 -8 9 .
344 Nadav N a ’aman

that such circles had suddenly sprung up in 10th century Jerusalem,

soon after the installation of a scribe at the royal court.
The term >apologetics< implies that the narrated episodes were so
important to the author that he composed the story cycle to legitimize
its hero and clear him of guilt in the eyes of the contemporary audience.
An apologia might be written only by an author who lived close to the
time of the events described. Indeed, all the ancient Near Eastern royal
apologetics that have been compared with the biblical history of David
were written by the kings who sought to acquit themselves of charges
that must have been raised against them by their contemporaries.
Contrary to the Near Eastern royal inscriptions, the story cycles of Saul,
David and Solomon were written hundreds of years after the recounted
events, and read by scholars chronologically far removed from those
events and their consequences. At the time of writing, not earlier than
the late 8th century BCE, the legitimacy of the dynasty of David was
firmly established, and SauPs descendants’ presumed claim to the throne
long forgotten.72 I very much doubt that at this time, some 250-300
years after the establishment of the monarchy in Judah, there was still
tension between Benjamin and Judah, the two main components of the
kingdom.73 Tension between these two entities was resumed only in the
post-exilic period, after the power centre was transferred for several
generations to the Benjaminite city of Mizpah, and the newly-rebuilt
city of Jerusalem made efforts to turn the wheel back and regain its
former central position in the province of Yehud. The new tension is in-
dicated in a few biblical compositions (e.g., Jud 1; 19-21; I Chr 8,29-40;
9,33-44; II Chr 10), but this is a late development and not relevant to
my discussion.74
When we detach these stories from the urgent issues of their time
and assume that there was a time lapse of several centuries between the
events and the writing, the perspectives of the story cycle are drastically
altered. It is not a contemporary work, contending for public opinion
against other contemporary viewpoints, but a literary composition in‫־‬
tended for a readership that had no direct connection with the events
described. The details of the stories that make up this literary work

72 For this reason we must dismiss the suggestion of Artur Weiser that the story o f DavicTs
rise was mainly written for legitimization. See idem, Die Legitimation des Königs
David. Zur Eigenart und Entstehung der sogen. Geschichte von Davids Aufstieg, VT 16
(1966), 3 2 5 -3 5 4 .
73 Contra Davies, Trouble with Benjamin, 9 4 -1 0 0 .
74 For recent discussions o f these and other post-exilic anti-Benjaminite compositions,
see Blenkinsopp, Benjamin Traditions, 629 -6 4 5 ; Y. Amit, The Saul polemic in the Per-
sian period, in: Lipschits and Oeming, Judah and the Judeans, 6 4 7 -6 6 1 , with earlier
literature.
 Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence of >Biblical Israel· 345

might have been selected on the basis of long-held oral traditions, which
revived the distant past for the readers and listeners, and due to the
literary interests of the writers rather than to their ideological and theo-
logical aims. In my opinion, the pre-Deuteronomistic story cycle of
Saul, David and Solomon was inspired by a genuine antiquarian and
literary interest of the scribes and their audience, and rested on a cycle
of oral narratives that were passed down orally to their authors in the
court of Jerusalem.
Some scholars have suggested that the story of Saul reflects an
Israelite tradition that was composed in the Northern Kingdom, and
was transmitted to Judah after the destruction of the kingdom in
720 BCE.75 However, we have already seen that through most of the
monarchical period the bulk of the tribal territory of Benjamin was a Ju-
dahite district. Saul was born in Gibeah/Gibeath Saul (Tell el‫־‬Fûl)76 and
buried in Zelah (II Sam 23,14; see Jos 18,28), which makes it likely that
he was a Judahite rather than Israelite hero.
Before examining more closely the »northern origin< hypothesis of
the Saul story cycle, it is necessary to emphasize an important method!‫־‬
cal principle. The analysis must distinguish between what the tradi-
tional stories tell us and what was added to the story cycle by the Deute-
ronomist. This author tried to >round off< the diverse stories he had
received and took pains to depict a detailed and coherent picture of the
establishment of the monarchy and its institutions. The pre-Deutero-

75 Walter Dietrich (The Early Monarchy, 168, 1 7 4 -1 7 7 , 2 4 7 -2 4 8 , 2 7 2 -2 7 4 ) developed

the concept that Samuel-Saul narrative »originated within the horizon of a northern
Israelite narration ... We should search for the historical location of this Israelite
founding myth in the northern kingdom before 722 B.C.E.« (p. 274). He even went so
far as to suggest that »his memory was held in honor in the north, even though the
memory was not worth much in the south« (p. 248). In light of this extreme position,
he assumed that the Samuel-Saul tradition was brought to Judah by fugitives arriving
in Judah after the collapse of the Northern Kingdom in 722. »It seems as if a Judahite
author incorporated northern Israelite material in order to compare and contrast the
first two kings as representatives of north and south« (p. 248). See also W. Dietrich,
David, Saul und die Propheten. Das Verhältnis von Religion und Politik nach den pro-
phetischen Überlieferungen vom frühesten Königtum in Israel, 2 nd revised ed., BWANT
122, 1992, 138-140; idem, Das Ende der Thronfolgegeschichte, 5 3 -6 0 , where Benja-
min is consistently presented as a north Israelite tribe.
76 M iller’s and Arnold’s suggestion that Gibeah/Gibeah of Saul and Geba are one and the
same place located at Jeba', in the eastern side of Benjamin’s hill country, is unaccept-
able. See J.M. Miller, Geba/Gibeah of Benjamin, VT 25 (1979), 145-166; Arnold,
Gibeah; S.M. Langston, Cultic Sites in the Tribe of Benjamin. Benjaminite Prominence
in the Religion of Israel, American University Studies, Series VII: Theology and Reli-
gion 2 0 0 ,1 9 9 8 , 8 3 -9 2 . For criticism, see N . N a ’aman, Book Reviews, JNES 54 (1995),
150-151; Schniedewind, The search for Gibeah, 7 1 1 -7 2 2 .
346 Nadav N a ’aman

nomistic story cycle included only the narratives, and such details as
lists of children, borders and officials, or overall summaries, were added
by the Deuteronomist on the basis of his sources, >reasonable< infer-
enees, and his own creative imagination.77
According to the Saul story cycle, his deeds and movements took
place in the land of Benjamin and never extended to the central high-
lands beyond the southernmost margins of Mount Ephraim (i.e., the
areas of Ramah/Ramathaim and Bethel). All the important places in the
central hill country north of the Bethel highlands are absent from the
narratives.78 Saul led several campaigns to the highlands of Judah, as far
as the Shephelah in the southwest, the Judean desert in the southeast and
the biblical Negev in the south. His campaigns to Transjordan and the
margins of the Jezreel Valley were always conducted via Gilgal, where he
had been elected, and which is described as an important cult centre in
his kingdom, hence along the Jordan Valley northwards. By this north-
ern route, along the >Arabah< and the ravine (? - bitrôn; see II Sam 2,29),
Saul reached Bezek and Jabesh-gilead (I Sam 11), and later reached
Jezreel, Endor and Mount Gilboa (I Sam 28,4.7; 29,1; 31,1). The im-
portance of this route explains the marriage of Merab, his elder
daughter, to Adriel of Meholah (I Sam 18,19; II Sam 21,8), identified
with Tell Abu Sus, a site located on this route near a crossing of the Jor-
dan.79 Saul’s story cycle memorialized his domination over the Gilead,
where Ish-Bacal, his son and heir, established his seat after Saul’s death
in battle. Although Ish-BacaPs residence was in Mahanaim, in the centre
of the Gilead, the stories about his reign took place in Benjamin (II Sam
2,12-32), Hebron (II Sam 3), and between Mahanaim and Hebron
(II Sam 4). The district of Gilead was also a temporary seat of David’s
(II Sam 17,24-29; see 2,5-7), and must have been memorialized in the oral
tradition for its close ties with the kings of the early monarchical period.
The hill country north of Bethel, on the other hand, which is absent from
the story cycle of Saul and Ish-Bacal, is also absent from that of David.

77 I have suggested that some - certainly not all - of the material that the Deuteronomist
added to the story cycles of Saul and David was taken from a source that I called »The
Chronicle of Early Israelite Kings«. See N . N a ’aman, Sources and Composition in the
History of David, in: V. Fritz and P.R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite
States, JSOT.S 228, 1996, 163-173; idem, In search of reality behind the account of
David’s wars with Israel’s neighbours, IEJ 52 (2002), 2 0 0 -2 2 4 .
78 The suggestion of D. Edelman that an old tradition »underlies the current form of
1 Sam. 9 .1 -1 0 .1 6 , which told how Saul took control over a segment of Mt. Ephraim«
is arbitrary. There is nothing in the story of the search for the lost asses to suggest con-
trol over the searched territories. See idem, Saul ben Kish in History and Tradition, in:
Fritz and Davies, The Origins, 153 and n. 12.
79 H.J. Zobel, Abel-Mehola, ZDPV 82 (1966), 83 -1 0 8 .
 Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence of »Biblical Israel· 347

Scholars frequently reconstructed Saul’s kingdom on the basis of

the description of Ish‫־‬BacaPs kingdom (II Sam 2,8-9).80 However, the
latter system was written by the Deuteronomist on the basis of his
understanding of the early reality and his concept of the Israelite
borders in the pre‫־‬monarchical period.81 The inclusion of the highlands
of Ephraim and Manasseh in Saul’s and Ish‫־‬Bacal’s kingdom is sup-
ported neither by their respective story cycles nor by that of David. In
my opinion, the scope of Saul’s and Ish‫־‬Bacal’s kingdoms must be drawn
on the basis of the narratives alone, since, in spite of their obvious limi-
tations as historical sources, they are the earliest sources available for
reconstructing the ancient reality in this early period.
In sum, the stories of Saul and his house are no less Judahite than
those of David. The two tribes were part and parcel of the kingdom of
Judah in the monarchical period, and the story cycles that describe their
history were composed by scribes in the court of Jerusalem. These nar-
ratives, long transmitted in the oral tradition, memorialized the intricate
and complicated way in which the monarchy in Judah arose as a union
of its two main tribal components, Benjamin and Judah. The memories
of the close relations and the domination of Saul and David in the
Gilead, and the absence of the highlands of Ephraim and Manasseh
from the narratives, are important clues for reconstructing the emerg-
ence of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the 10th century. Clearly the
stories of the emergence of the Northern Kingdom have not come down
to us and must be reconstructed from the fragmentary data available
in the biblical historiography and the archaeological record.82 The old
Judahite tradition of the emergence of the monarchy is embedded in the
histories of Saul, David and Solomon, and must be critically discussed in
an effort to draw some outlines of its gradual growth in the 10th cen-
tury BCE.
As for the emergence of the term >Israel< in Judahite historiography,
I suggest that it is the result of the pre-Deuteronomistic Judahite histori-
ography that included the story cycles of Saul and David. According to
these story cycles, the territories dominated by each of these kings was
larger than that of the kingdom of Judah, so the latter designation did
not fit the contents of the story cycles. Some north Israelite territories, in

80 For recent discussions and map, see Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 173-177; W. Diet-
rich and S. Münger, Die Herrschaft Sauls und der Norden Israels, in: C.G. den Hertog,
U. Hübner and S. Münger (eds.), Saxa loquentur. Studien zur Archäologie Palästinas/
Israels, FS Volkmar Fritz, 2003, 3 9 -5 9 .
81 N . N a ’aman, The Kingdom of Ishbaal, BN 54 (1990), 3 3-37; cf. Neef, Ephraim,
2 7 3 -2 7 7 .
82 See I. Finkeistein and N . N a ’aman, Shechem of the Amarna Period and the Rise of the
Northern Kingdom of Israel, IEJ 55 (2005), 1 7 2-193.
348 Nadav N a ’aman

particular the area of Gilead, were included in the territory in which the
two kings operated. Moreover, Solomon’s pre-Deuteronomistic story
cycle, which I have not discussed in this article, encompassed a territory
much larger than that of the kingdom of Judah. It must be remembered
that at the time when the story cycles were put in writing, the kingdom
of Israel no longer existed, and the term >Israel< had lost its former
owners. For this reason it was chosen to denote the entities dominated
by the three kings. Later, the story cycles of the early Israelite kings
formed the basis for the comprehensive historical work written by the
Deuteronomist. This great historian found it useful to adopt this flex‫־‬
ible term, which he could apply to the vast territory formerly ruled by
the kingdom of Israel, or to part of it. The term >Israel< thus became a
>literary< designation for the nation of the devotees of YHWH, who in-
habited the territories of Israel and Judah since early time. Still other
authors applied this >literary< designation in other works, including such
historiographical works as the Tetrateuch, and other genres, such as the
prophetic and wisdom literature. But the historical, and more accurate,
designations of >Judah< and >Judeans< were concurrently used through-
out the exilic and post-exilic periods. The application of the >literary<
designation >Israel< to the political and administrative life took place
much later, when Judea gradually expanded to include the territories of
the former kingdom of Israel during the Hasmonaean period, and the
expanse of the growing kingdom somewhat overlapped that of the his-
torical Israel of the monarchical period.

The article addresses the question, why the Judahite authors began calling the kingdom and
the people amongst whom they composed their works by the name >Israel<, rather than
>Judah<. It discusses major problems, such as (a) the evidence to support the assumption
that the district of Benjamin was part of the territory of Israel before the late 8th century;
(b) whether Benjamin was considered a north Israelite tribe, thus possibly the channel
through which northern traditions passed to the court of Jerusalem; (c) whether the rivalry
between Saul and David, described in the Book of Samuel, reflected the tension between
Israel and Judah in the monarchical period. After examining in detail these and other fun-
damental questions, it is suggested that the concept of >biblical Israel· emerged in Judahite
historiography of the pre-exilic period. It was chosen because the description of the rise
of the monarchy encompassed a territory that was much larger than that o f the kingdom
of Judah, whereas the name >Israel<, which was left unclaimed after Israel’s annexation by
Assyria, applied well to the depicted territory and its inhabitants.

Cette étude s’interroge sur le fait que les auteurs judéens désignent le royaume et le peuple,
dans le cadre desquels ils composent leurs oeuvres, comme »Israël« et non »Juda«. On
aborde ainsi des questions fondamentales: (a) les témoignages qui font penser que le district
de Benjamin faisait partie du territoire d’Israël dès avant le 8ème siècle; (b) si Benjamin était
considéré comme une tribu du Nord, ce qui amena des traditions du Nord à la cour de
Jérusalem, et (c) si la rivalité entre Saül et David, décrite dans le livre de Samuel, reflète des
 Saul, Benjamin and the Emergence of >Biblical Israel< 349

tensions entre Israël et Juda à l’époque monarchique. Après une analyse détaillée de ces
questions fondamentales, et d’autres, TA. propose que le concept d’ »Israël biblique« se
constitue déjà à l’époque de l’historiographie judéenne préexilique. Ce concept a été choisi
parce que la représentation des origines de la royauté concernait un domaine bien plus
étendu que celui du royaume de Juda, alors que le nom »Israël«, qui n’était plus revendiqué
après l’annexion du royaume du Nord par l’Assyrie, s’appliquait bien au territoire en ques-
tion et à ses habitants.
Der Aufsatz wendet sich der Frage zu, warum die judäischen Verfasser das Königtum und
das Volk, unter denen sie ihre Werke erstellen, als »Israel« und nicht als »Juda« bezeichnen.
Dabei werden als wesentliche Fragen debattiert: (a) die Belege, die die Annahme unterstüt-
zen, das Gebiet Benjamins sei vor dem Ende des 8. Jahrhunderts Teil des Territoriums von
Israel gewesen, (b) ob Benjamin als nordisraelitischer Stamm angesehen wurde, durch den
möglicherweise nördliche Traditionen an den Jerusalemer H of gelangten und (c) ob die im
Samuelbuch beschriebene Rivalität zwischen Saul und David Spannungen zwischen Israel
und Juda in der Königszeit widerspiegelt. Nach der detaillierten Behandlung dieser und
weiterer grundlegender Fragen wird vorgeschlagen, dass das Konzept »Biblisches Israel«
sich schon in der vorexilischen judäischen Geschichtsschreibung herausgebildet hat. Es
wurde ausgewählt, weil die Darstellung der Entstehung des Königtums von einem Herr-
schaftsgebiet ausgeht, das um Einiges größer war als dasjenige des Königreichs Juda, wäh-
rend der Nam e »Israel«, der nach der assyrischen Eroberung nicht anderweitig beansprucht
wurde, gut auf das beschriebene Gebiet und seine Bewohner anwendbar war.
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