Israelites were a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

during the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanite populations and other peoples.Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture ... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002). ''The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel''. Eerdmans. They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the

Canaanite languages The Canaanite languages, sometimes referred to as Canaanite dialects, are one of four subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages. The others are Aramaic and the now-extinct Ugaritic and Amorite language. These closely related languages origin ...

, and worshipped Yahweh. In the Iron Age, the Israelites established the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whose capital cities were

Samaria Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and Hebrew Bible, biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is ...

and

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

respectively. Around 720 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel fell to the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

, followed by the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah by the

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...

in 586 BCE. During the latter, some Judeans were exiled to Babylon but returned to the land of Judah after

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...

conquered the region. According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Jacob Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...

, a

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and ...

who was later renamed as

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Due to a severe drought in Canaan, Jacob and his twelve sons fled to Egypt, where they gradually formed the

Twelve Tribes of Israel The Twelve Tribes of Israel ( , ) are described in the Hebrew Bible as being the descendants of Jacob, a Patriarchs (Bible), Hebrew patriarch who was a son of Isaac and thereby a grandson of Abraham. Jacob, later known as Israel (name), Israel, ...

. The Israelites were subsequently enslaved by the Egyptians but were liberated by

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

. Under the leadership of Moses's successor,

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

, they also conquered Canaan. After the conquest, the Israelites established a kritarchy, followed by the United Kingdom of Israel. The latter split into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Modern scholars consider these narratives to be part of the Israelites'

national myth A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as important national symbols and affirm a set of national values. A myth is entirely ficticious but it is often mixture with aspects of histori ...

but believe there is a 'historical core'.The historicity of the United Kingdom of Israel is also widely disputed.

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

both trace their ancestry to the ancient Israelites. Jews trace their ancestry to tribes that inhabited the Kingdom of Judah, including Judah,

Benjamin Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

and partially

Levi Levi ( ; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelites, Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron ...

, while the Samaritans claim their lineage from the remaining members of

Ephraim Ephraim (; , in pausa: ''ʾEp̄rāyīm'') was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph ben Jacob and Asenath, as well as the adopted son of his biological grandfather Jacob, making him the progenitor of the Tribe of Ephrai ...

Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh ( ...

, and Levi who were not deported in the

Assyrian captivity The Assyrian captivity, also called the Assyrian exile, is the period in the history of ancient Israel and Judah during which tens of thousands of Israelites from the Kingdom of Israel were dispossessed and forcibly relocated by the Neo-Assyrian ...

after the fall of Israel. Other groups also claim affiliation with the Israelites.

Etymology

The first reference to ''Israel'' in non-biblical sources is found in the

Merneptah Stele The Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah, is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE. Discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes, Egypt, Thebes in 1896, i ...

in . The inscription is very brief and says: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". The inscription refers to a

people The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

, not an individual or

nation state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the State (polity), state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly ...

, who inhabit central

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

Van der Toorn, K. (196)
''Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit and Israel: Continuity and Changes in the Forms of Religious Life''
Brill. pp. 181, 282. or the highlands of

. Some Egyptologists suggest that ''Israel'' appeared in earlier topographical reliefs, dating to the

Eighteenth Dynasty The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII, alternatively 18th Dynasty or Dynasty 18) is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. The Eighteenth Dynasty ...

Nineteenth Dynasty The Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XIX), also known as the Ramessid dynasty, is classified as the second Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom period, lasting from 1292 BC to 1189 BC. The 19th Dynasty and the 20th Dynasty fu ...

(i.e. reign of

Ramesses II Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...

) ,Van der Veern, Peter, et al. "Israel in Canaan (Long) Before Pharaoh Merenptah? A Fresh Look at Berlin Statue Pedestal Relief 21687". ''Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections''. pp. 15–25. but this reading remains controversial.Romer, Thomas (2015). ''The Invention of God'', Harvard. p. 75.Dijkstra, Meindert (2017). "Canaan in the Transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age from an Egyptian Perspective". In Grabbe, Lester, ed. ''The Land of Canaan in the Late Bronze Age''. Bloomsbury. p. 62, n. 17 In the Hebrew Bible, ''

'' first appears in , where an angel renames

Jacob Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...

to Israel after Jacob fought with him.Scherman, Rabbi Nosson, ed. (2006). ''The Chumash''. The Artscroll Series. Mesorah. pp. 176–77.Kaplan, Aryeh (1985). "Jewish Meditation". New York: Schocken. p. 125. According to the

folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...

given in the text, Israel is derived from ''yisra'', "to prevail over" or "to struggle with", and '' El'', a Canaanite-

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

creator god A creator deity or creator god is a deity responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatristic traditions separate a ...

that is tenuously identified with Yahweh. However, modern scholarship interprets ''El'' as the subject, "El rules/struggles", from ''sarar'' () 'to rule' (cognate with ''sar'' () 'ruler', Akkadian ''šarru'' 'ruler, king'), which is likely cognate with the similar root ''sara'' () "fought, strove, contended". Dr. Tzemah Yoreh clarifies that Israel is a combination of 'to strive with' (ש.ר.ה) and 'God' (אל) and that Jacob's name alternates between Jacob and Israel in the biblical narrative, even after his renaming, due to the authors having different opinions about Jacob's moral character.

Biblical narrative

The history of the Israelite people can be divided into these categories, according to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' ; Pre-Monarchic Period (unknown to c. 1050 BCE) : The Israelites were named after their ancestor,

/Israel, who was the grandson of

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

. They were organized into 12 tribes:

Reuben Reuben or Reuven is a Biblical male first name from Hebrew רְאוּבֵן (Re'uven), meaning "behold, a son". In the Bible, Reuben was the firstborn son of Jacob. Variants include Reuvein in Yiddish or as an English variant spelling on th ...

Simeon Simeon () is a given name, from the Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew, Biblical ''Šimʿon'', Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian ''Šimʿôn''), usually transliterated in English as Shimon. In Greek, it is written Συμεών, hence the Latinized spelling Sy ...

, Judah, Dan,

Naphtali According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (; ) was the sixth son of Jacob, the second of his two sons with Bilhah. He was the founder of the Israelite tribe of Naphtali. Some biblical commentators have suggested that the name ''Naphtali'' ma ...

, Gad,

Asher Asher ( ''’Āšēr''), in the Book of Genesis, was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Zilpah, and Jacob's eighth son overall. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Asher. Name The text of the Torah states that the name אָ� ...

Issachar Issachar () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fifth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's ninth son), and the founder of the Israelites, Israelite Tribe of Issachar. However, some Biblical criticism, Biblical scholars view this as ...

Zebulun Zebulun (; also ''Zebulon'', ''Zabulon'', or ''Zaboules'' in ''Antiquities of the Jews'' by Josephus) was, according to the Books of Genesis and Numbers,Genesis 46:14 the last of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's tenth son), and the foun ...

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

(or

Tribe of Ephraim According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim (, ''ʾEp̄rayim,'' in Pausa, pausa: , ''ʾEp̄rāyim'') was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Tribe of Manasseh, together with Ephraim, formed the Tribe of Joseph. It is one of the Ten L ...

and

Tribe of Manasseh According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Manasseh (; Hebrew: ''Ševet Mənašše,'' Tiberian: ''Šēḇeṭ Mănašše'') was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. After the catastrophic Assyrian invasion of 720 BCE, it is counted as one ...

) and

. Originally, they went to Egypt after a famine in

but were enslaved by the Egyptians. They escaped and organized themselves as a kritarchy, where they followed laws given by Moses. Afterwards, the Israelites conquered Canaan and fought with several neighbours until they established a monarchic state. :* This period is covered by Genesis 12 to 1 Samuel 8. ; United Monarchy (c. 1050–930 BCE) : As a monarchic state, the Israelite tribes were united by the leadership of

Saul Saul (; , ; , ; ) was a monarch of ancient Israel and Judah and, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, the first king of the United Monarchy, a polity of uncertain historicity. His reign, traditionally placed in the late eleventh c ...

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

and

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

. The reigns of Saul and David were marked by military victories and Israel's transition to a mini-empire with

vassal state A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back to ...

s. Solomon's reign was relatively more peaceful and oversaw the construction of the

First Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it was commis ...

, with the help of

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n allies. This Temple was where the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...

was stored; its former location was the City of David. :* This period is covered by 1 Samuel 8 to

1 Kings 11 1 Kings 11 is the eleventh chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah b ...

or alternatively, 1 Chronicles 10 to 2 Chronicles 9. ; Divided Monarchy (c. 930–597 BCE) : The monarchic state was divided into two states,

and Judah, due to civil and religious disputes. Eventually, Israel and Judah met their demise after the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions respectively. According to the

Biblical prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the ...

s, these invasions were divine judgements for religious apostasy and corrupt leadership. :* This period is covered by 1 Kings 12 to

2 Kings 25 2 Kings 25 is the twenty-fifth and final chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of recorded acts of the kings of Isr ...

or alternatively, 2 Chronicles 10 to

2 Chronicles 36 2 Chronicles 36 is the thirty-sixth (and the final) chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. The book is compiled from older source ...

. The

Book of Jonah The Book of Jonah is one of the twelve minor prophets of the Nevi'im ("Prophets") in the Hebrew Bible, and an individual book in the Christian Old Testament where it has four chapters. The book tells of a Hebrew prophet named Jonah, son of Amitt ...

narrates the prophet

Jonah Jonah the son of Amittai or Jonas ( , ) is a Jewish prophet from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE according to the Hebrew Bible. He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, one of the minor proph ...

going to the

to deliver a divine message. ; Exilic Period (c. 597–538 BCE) : After the Babylonians invaded Judah, they deported most of its citizens to Babylon, where they lived as "exiles".

conquered Babylon and established the

First Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

in 539 BCE. One year later, according to traditional dating, Cyrus permitted the Judahites to return to their homeland. This homeland was re-named as the Province of Yehud, which eventually became a satrapy of

Eber-Nari Eber-Nari ( Akkadian), also called Abar-Nahara (Aramaic) or Aber Nahra ( Syriac), was a region of the ancient Near East. Translated as "Beyond the River" or "Across the River" in both the Akkadian and Aramaic languages, it referred to the land on ...

. :* This period is covered by the entirety of the

Book of Daniel The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th-century BC setting. It is ostensibly a narrative detailing the experiences and Prophecy, prophetic visions of Daniel, a Jewish Babylonian captivity, exile in Babylon ...

. ; Persian Period (c. 539–331 BCE) : In 537–520 BCE,

Zerubbabel Zerubbabel ( from ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province of Yehud Medinata and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. He is not documented in extra-biblical documents, and is considered ...

became Yehud's governor and started work on the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

, which was stopped. In 520–516 BCE,

Haggai Haggai or Aggeus (; – ''Ḥaggay''; ; Koine Greek: Ἀγγαῖος; ) was a Hebrew prophet active during the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, one of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the author or subject of the ...

and Zechariah goaded the Judahites to resume work on the Temple. Upon completion,

became its high priest. In 458–433 BCE,

Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...

and

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

led another group of Judahites to Yehud, with

Artaxerxes Artaxerxes may refer to: The throne name of several Achaemenid rulers of the 1st Persian Empire: * Artaxerxes I of Persia (died 425 BC), Artaxerxes I Longimanus, ''r.'' 466–425 BC, son and successor of Xerxes I * Artaxerxes II of Persia (436 BC ...

's permission. Nehemiah rebuilt the temple after some unspecified disaster and removed foreign influence from the Judahite community. That said, some Judahites elected to stay in Persia, where they almost faced annihilation. :* This period is covered by the entirety of the

Book of Ezra The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible which formerly included the Book of Nehemiah in a single book, commonly distinguished in scholarship as Ezra–Nehemiah. The two became separated with the first printed Mikraot Gedolot, rabbinic bib ...

Book of Nehemiah The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible largely takes the form of a first-person memoir by Nehemiah, a Hebrew prophet and high official at the Persian court, concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile and the ...

, the

Book of Esther The Book of Esther (; ; ), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Megillot, Five Scrolls () in the Hebr ...

, the

Book of Haggai The Book of Haggai (; ) is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, and is the third-to-last of the Twelve Minor Prophets. It is a short book, consisting of only two chapters. The historical setting dates around 520 BC, before the Temple in Je ...

, the

Book of Zechariah The Book of Zechariah is a Jewish text attributed to Zechariah, a Hebrew prophet of the late 6th century BC. In the Hebrew Bible, the text is included as part of the Twelve Minor Prophets, itself a part of the second division of that work. In ...

, and the

Book of Malachi The Book of Malachi () is the last book of the Nevi'im in the Tanakh and canonically the final book of the Twelve Minor Prophets. In most Christian traditions, the prophetic books form the last section of the Old Testament, making Malachi the las ...

Definition of Israelite

Biblically, the Israelites referred to the direct descendants of Israel, a view that was reinforced by

Second Temple Judaism Second Temple Judaism is the Judaism, Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), destruction of Jerusalem in ...

. They referred to themselves as the ''sons of Israel''.'''',

gentiles ''Gentile'' () is a word that today usually means someone who is not Jewish. Other Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites, groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, have historically used the term ''gentile'' to describe outsider ...

(i.e. resident aliens) could fully assimilate into the Israelite community. Some scholars interpret ''sons of Israel'' as citizens of the Israelite community, especially after Israel's biological family transitioned from a clan to a society (). In fact, there is evidence of

(i.e. resident aliens) assimilating into the Israelite community. Whilst the Israelites called themselves the ''sons of Jacob'', some scholars interpret this as citizens of the Israelite community, especially after Israel's biological family transitioned from a clan to a society (). Contemporary ethnicities in the

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran (or Persia), Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. As such, the fields of ancient Near East studies and Nea ...

similarly named themselves this way. Likewise, tribal membership in Israel was likely based on one's self-declared allegiance or residency within an assigned tribal territory (). Alternatively, the Israelites were a religious group that adhered to Yahwism and that their ethnic identity was based on 'covenantal circumcision' rather than ancestry ().

Biblical theories on Israelite origins

The Israelites trace their ancestors to Jacob, who in turn descended from Abraham. Abraham was formerly a native of Ur Kaśdim (), whose location is hotly contested. Some scholars argue that it is located in

lower Mesopotamia Lower Mesopotamia is a historical region of Mesopotamia. It is located in the alluvial plain of Iraq from the Hamrin Mountains to the Faw Peninsula near the Persian Gulf. In the Middle Ages it was also known as the '' Sawad'' and al-Jazira al-s ...

whilst others locate it further north in

upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the Upland and lowland, uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the regio ...

, around northern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

Issar, A. S. ''Strike the Rock and There Shall Come Water: Climate Changes, Water Resources and History of the Lands of the Bible'', p. 67. Springer. 2014. or southeastern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Theologians suggest that Canaan always belonged to the Israelites but was initially usurped by the descendants of Canaan, resulting in their conquest by Israel as

divine punishment Divine retribution is supernatural punishment of a person, a group of people, or everyone by a deity in response to some action. Many cultures have a story about how a deity imposed punishment on previous inhabitants of their land, causing th ...

. Israelite presence in Canaan was also established before Joshua's conquests according to a few biblical traditions. Stiftshuette Modell Timnapark

Historical Israelites

Efforts to confirm the biblical ethnogenesis of Israel through

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

have largely been abandoned as unproductive. Many scholars see the traditional narratives as

s with little historical value, but some posit that a small group of exiled Egyptians contributed to the Exodus narrative.

William G. Dever William Gwinn Dever (born November 27, 1933, Louisville, Kentucky) is an American archaeologist, Biblical scholar, historian, semiticist, and theologian. He is an active Biblical scholar, scholar of the Old Testament, and historian, specialized ...

cautiously identifies this group with the

Tribe of Joseph The Tribe of Joseph is one of the Tribes of Israel in biblical tradition. Since the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (often called the "two half-tribes of Joseph") together traditionally constituted the "tribe of Joseph", it was often not lis ...

, while

Richard Elliott Friedman Richard Elliott Friedman (born May 5, 1946) is an American biblical scholar, theologian, and translator who currently serves as the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia. Life and career Friedman was born in ...

identifies it with the

Tribe of Levi According to the Bible, the Tribe of Levi is one of the tribes of Israel, traditionally descended from Levi, son of Jacob. The descendants of Aaron, who was the first High Priest of Israel, were designated as the priestly class, the Kohanim. ...

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

quoting

Manetho Manetho (; ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος, ''fl''. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his ...

identifies them with the

Hyksos The Hyksos (; Egyptian language, Egyptian ''wikt:ḥqꜣ, ḥqꜣ(w)-wikt:ḫꜣst, ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''heqau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands"), in modern Egyptology, are the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt ( ...

. Other scholars believe that the Exodus narrative was a "

collective memory Collective memory is the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire collect ...

" of several events from the Bronze Age. In addition, it is unlikely that the Israelites overtook the

southern Levant The Southern Levant is a geographical region that corresponds approximately to present-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and the Sinai Peninsula. As a strictly geographical descript ...

by force, according to archaeological evidence. Instead, they branched out of indigenous Canaanite peoples that long inhabited the region, which included Syria,

ancient Israel The history of ancient Israel and Judah spans from the Israelite highland settlement, early appearance of the Israelites in Canaan's hill country during the late second millennium BCE, to the establishment and subsequent downfall of the two ...

, and the Transjordan region. Their culture was monolatristic, with a primary focus on Yahweh (or El) worship, but after the Babylonian exile, it became

monotheistic Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...

, with partial influence from Zoroastrianism. The latter decisively separated the Israelites from other Canaanites. The Israelites used the Canaanite script and communicated in a Canaanite language known as Biblical Hebrew. The language's Modern Hebrew, modern descendant is today the only surviving dialect of the

. Genetic studies show that contemporary ethnicities in the Levant were, like Israel, distinguished by their unique cultures, due to their descent from a common ancestral stock.

Origins

Several theories exist for the origins of historical Israelites. Some believe they descend from raiding groups, itinerant nomads such as Habiru and Shasu or impoverished Canaanites, who were forced to leave wealthy urban areas and live in the highlands. Gary Rendsburg argues that some archaic biblical traditions and other circumstantial evidence point to the Israelites emerging from the Shasu and other seminomadic peoples from the desert regions south of the Levant, later settling in the highlands of Canaan. The prevailing academic opinion is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples predominately indigenous to Canaan, with additional input from an Egyptian matrix of peoples, which most likely inspired the Exodus narrative.Gottwald, Norman (1999)
''Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE''
A&C Black. p. 433. cf. 455–56. Israel's demographics were similar to the demographics of Ammon, Edom, Moab and

. Besides their focus on Yahweh worship, Israelite cultural markers were defined by body, food, and time, including male circumcision, Pork taboo, avoidance of pork consumption and marking time based on the Exodus, the reigns of Kings of Israel and Judah, Israelite kings, and Biblical Sabbath, Sabbath observance. The first two markers were observed by neighbouring Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, west Semites besides the Philistines, who were of Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean Greek origin. As a result, intermarriage with other Semites was common. But what distinguished Israelite circumcision from non-Israelite circumcision was its emphasis on 'correct' timing. Israelite circumcision also served as a mnemonic sign for the circumcised, where their 'unnatural' erect circumcised penis would remind them to behave differently in sexual matters. Yom-Tov Lipmann-Muhlhausen suggests that Israelite identity was based on faith and adherence to sex-appropriate commandments. For men, it was circumcision. For women, it was ritual sacrifice after childbirth (). Genealogy was another ethnic marker. While it was likely that Israelite identity was not exclusively Blood quantum laws, based on blood descent, the Israelites used genealogy to engage in narcissism of small differences but also, self-criticism since their ancestors included morally questionable characters such as Jacob. Both these traits represented the "complexities of the Jewish soul". Names were significant in Israelite culture and indicated one's destiny and inherent character. Thus, a name change indicated a 'divine transformation' in one's 'destines, characters and natures'. These beliefs aligned with the Near Eastern cultural milieu, where names were 'intimately bound up with the very essence of being and inextricably intertwined with personality'. In terms of appearance, rabbis described the Biblical Jews as being "midway between black and white" and having the "color of the boxwood tree". Assuming Frank J. Yurco, Yurco's debated claim that the Israelites are depicted in reliefs from Merneptah's temple at Karnak is correct, the early Israelites may have wore the same attire and hairstyles as non-Israelite Canaanites. Dissenting from this, Anson Rainey argued that the Israelites in the reliefs looked more similar to the Shasu. Based on biblical literature, it is implied that the Israelites distinguished themselves from peoples like the Babylonians and Egyptians by not having long beards and chin tufts. However, these fashion practices were upper class customs.

Early Israelite settlements

In the 12th century BCE, many Israelite settlements appeared in the central hill country of Canaan, which was formerly an open terrain. These settlements lacked evidence of pork consumption, compared to Philistine settlements, had four-room houses and lived by an Egalitarianism, egalitarian ethos, which was exemplified by the absence of elaborate tombs, governor's mansions, certain houses being bigger than others etc. They followed a Mixed economy#Mix of markets and economic planning, mixed economy, which prioritized Self-sufficiency economy, self-sufficiency, Crop farming, cultivation of crops, animal husbandry and Small business, small-scale craft production. New technologies such as Terrace Farming, terraced farming, silos for grain storage and cisterns for rainwater collection were simultaneously introduced. These settlements were built by inhabitants of the "general Southland" (i.e. modern Sinai Peninsula, Sinai and the southern parts of Israel and Jordan), who abandoned their pastoral-nomadic ways. Canaanites who lived outside the central hill country were tenuously identified as Danites, Asherites, Zebulunites, Issacharites, Naphtalites and Gadites. These inhabitants do not have a significant history of migration besides the Danites, who allegedly originate from the Sea Peoples, particularly the Danaoi, Dan(an)u. Nonetheless, they intermingled with the former nomads, due to socioeconomic and military factors. Their interest in Yahwism and its concern for the underprivileged was another factor. Possible allusions to this historical reality in the Hebrew Bible include the aforementioned tribes, except for Issachar and Zebulun, descending from Bilhah and Zilpah, who were viewed as "secondary additions" to Israel. El worship was central to early Israelite culture but currently, the number of El worshippers in Israel is unknown. It is more likely that different Israelite locales held different views about El and had 'small-scale' sacred spaces. Himbaza et al. (2012) states that Israelite households were typically ill-equipped to handle conflicts between family members, which may explain the harsh sexual taboos enforced against acts like incest, homosexuality, polygamy etc. in . While the Death penalty in the Bible, death penalty was legislated for these 'secret crimes', they functioned as a warning, where offenders would confess out of fear and make appropriate reparations.

Monarchic period

United Monarchy

The historicity of the United Monarchy is heavily debated among archaeologists and biblical scholars: biblical maximalists and centrists (Kenneth Kitchen,

, Amihai Mazar, Baruch Halpern and others) argue that the biblical account is more or less accurate, while biblical minimalists (Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, Thomas L. Thompson and others) argue that Israel and Judah never split from a singular state. The debate has not been resolved, but recent archaeological discoveries by Eilat Mazar and Yosef Garfinkel show some support for the existence of the United Monarchy. From 850 BCE onwards, a series of inscriptions mention the "Davidic line, House of David". They came from Israel's neighbours.

Kingdoms of Israel and Judah

Compared to the United Monarchy, the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah is widely accepted by historians and archaeologists. Their destruction by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively is also confirmed by archaeological evidence and extrabiblical sources. Christian Frevel argues that Yahwism was rooted in the culture of the Kingdom of Israel, who introduced it to the Kingdom of Judah via Ahab's expansions and sociopolitical cooperation, which was prompted by Hazael's conquests. Frevel has also argued that Judah was a 'vassal-like' state to Israel, under the Omrides. This theory has been rejected by other scholars, who argue that the archaeological evidence seems to indicate that Judah was an independent socio-political entity for most of the 9th century BCE. Avraham Faust argues that there was continued adherence to the 'ethos of egalitarianism and simplicity' in the Iron Age II (10th-6th century BCE). For example, there is minimal evidence of temples and complex tomb burials, despite Israel and Judah being more densely populated than the Late Bronze Age. Four-room houses remained the norm. In addition, royal inscriptions were scarce, along with imported and decorated pottery. According to

, Israelite identity in the 9th-8th centuries BCE can be identified through a combination of archaeological and cultural traits that distinguish them from their neighbours. These traits include being born and living within the territorial borders of Israel or Judah, speaking Hebrew, living in specific house types, using locally produced pottery, and following particular burial practices. Israelites were also part of a rural, kin-based society, and adhered to Yahwism, though not necessarily in a monotheistic way. Their material culture was simple but distinct, and their societal organization was centered around family and inheritance. These traits, while shared with some neighbouring peoples, were uniquely Israelite in their specific combination. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the

around 720 Common Era, BCE. The records of Sargon II of Assyria indicate that he deported part of the population to Assyria. Some Israelites migrated to the southern kingdom of Judah, while those that remained in Samaria, concentrated mainly around Mount Gerizim, developed a new ethnic identity as

. Foreign groups were also settled by the Assyrians in the territories of the conquered kingdom. Research indicates that only a portion of the surviving Israelite population intermarried with Mesopotamians settlers. In their native Samaritan Hebrew, the Samaritans identify as "Israel", "B'nai Israel" or "Shamerim/Shomerim" (i.e. "Guardians/Keepers/Watchers"). Despite this, belief in the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel emerged because of the heavy assimilation faced by Samarian deportees. Towards the end of the same century, the Neo-Babylonian Empire emerged victorious over the Assyrians, leading to Judah's subjugation as a

. In the early 6th century BC, a series of Judah's revolts against Babylon, revolts in Judah prompted the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II to lay Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), siege to and destroy Jerusalem along with the Solomon's Temple, First Temple, marking the kingdom's demise. Subsequently, a segment of the Judahite populace was Babylonian captivity, exiled to Babylon in several waves. Judeans were progenitors of the Jews, who practised

during the Second Temple period.

Later history

With the fall of Babylon to the rising Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid Persian Empire, king

issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus, encouraging the exiles to Return to Zion, return to their homeland after the Persians raised it as an autonomous Jewish-governed province named Yehud Medinata, Yehud. Under the Persians (), the returned Jewish population restored the city and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. The Cyrus Cylinder is controversially cited as evidence for Cyrus allowing the Judeans to return. The returnees showed a "heightened sense" of their ethnic identity and shunned exogamy, which was treated as a "permissive reality" in Babylon.Katherine ER. Southward
''Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra, 9–10: An Anthropological Approach,''
Oxford University Press 2012 pp.103–203, esp. p.193. Circumcision was no longer a significant ethnic marker, with increased emphasis on genealogical descent or faith in Yahweh. Jason A. Staples argues that the majority of contemporary Jews, regardless of theology, wished for the reunion of northern Israelites and southern Jews. In 332 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great, and the region was later incorporated into the Ptolemaic Kingdom () and the Seleucid Empire (). The Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule ushered in a period of nominal independence for the Jewish people under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE). Initially operating semi-autonomously within the Seleucid sphere, the Hasmoneans gradually asserted full independence through military conquest and diplomacy, establishing themselves as the final sovereign Jewish rulers before a prolonged hiatus in Jewish sovereignty in the region. Some scholars argue that Jews also engaged in active missionary efforts in the Greco-Roman world, which led to conversions.Louis H. Feldman
"The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers"
, ''Biblical Archaeology Review'' 12, 5 (1986), Center for Online Judaic Studies.Shaye J. D. Cohen, ''From the Maccabees to the Mishnah'' (1989), pp. 55–59, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, . Several scholars, such as Scot McKnight and Martin Goodman (historian), Martin Goodman, reject this view while holding that conversions occasionally occurred. A similar diaspora existed for Samaritans but their existence is poorly documented. In 63 BCE, the Roman Republic conquered the kingdom. In 37 BCE, the Romans appointed Herod the Great as king of Herodian Kingdom of Judea, a vassal Judea. In 6 CE, Judea was fully incorporated into the Roman Empire as the Judaea (Roman province), province of Judaea. During this period, the main areas of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel were Judea, Galilee and Perea, while the Samaritans had their demographic center in

. Growing dissatisfaction with Roman rule and civil disturbances eventually led to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, which ended the Second Temple period. This event marked a cataclysmic moment in Jewish history, prompting a reconfiguration of Jewish identity and practice to ensure continuity. The cessation of Temple worship and disappearance of Temple-based sects facilitated the rise of Rabbinic Judaism, which stemmed from the Pharisees, Pharisaic school of Second Temple Judaism, emphasizing Synagogue, communal synagogue worship and Torah study, eventually becoming the predominant expression of Judaism. Concurrently, Christianity Split of Christianity and Judaism, began to diverge from Judaism, evolving into a predominantly Gentile religion. Decades later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE) further diminished the Jewish presence in Judea, leading to a geographical shift of Jewish life to Galilee and Asoristan, Babylonia, with smaller communities scattered across the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean.

Modern-day groups seen as descendants, or claiming connections

Jews and Samaritans share a connection with the biblical Land of Israel. Some argue that some Palestinians descend from Israelites who were not exiled by the Romans.Moshe Gil, Gil, Moshe. [1983] 1997. ''A History of Palestine, 634–1099''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 222–3: "David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi claimed that the population at the time of the Arab conquest was mainly Christian, of Jewish origins, which underwent conversion to avoid a tax burden, basing their argument on 'the fact that at the time of the Arab conquest, the population of Palestine was mainly Christian and that during the Crusaders' conquest some four hundred years later, it was mainly Muslim. As neither the Byzantines nor the Muslims carried out any large-scale population resettlement projects, the Christians were the offspring of the Jewish and Samaritan farmers who converted to Christianity in the Byzantine period; while the Muslim fellaheen in Palestine in modern times are descendants of those Christians who were the descendants of Jews, and had turned to Islam before the Crusaders' conquest."A tragic misunderstanding
nbsp;– Times online, 13 January 2009. Other groups claim continuity with the Israelites, including Theories of Pashtun origin#Israelite theory, Pashtuns, British Israelists, Black Hebrew Israelites, Igbo Jews, Igbos, Mormons, and evangelical Christians that subscribe to covenant theology.

Genetics

As of 2024, only one study has directly examined ancient Israelite genetic material. The analysis examined Solomon's Temple, First Temple-era skeletal remains excavated in Abu Ghosh, and showed one male individual belonging to the Haplogroup J-M172, J2 Y-DNA haplogroup, a set of closely-related DNA sequences thought to have originated in the Caucasus or Eastern Anatolia, as well as the Haplogroup T (mtDNA), T1a and Haplogroup H (mtDNA), H87 Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup, mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, the former of which has also been detected among Canaanites, and the latter in Basques, Tunisian Arabs, and Iraqis, suggesting a Mediterranean, Near Eastern, or perhaps Arabian origin. A 2004 study (by Shen et al.) comparing

to several Jews, Jewish populations (including Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan Jews, and Yemenite Jews) found that "the principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim), with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian captivity, Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel." (855 KB), Hum Mutat 24:248–260, 2004. A 2020 study (by Agranat-Tamr et al.) stated that there was genetic continuity between the Bronze Age and Iron Age southern Levantines, which included the Israelites and Judahites. They could be "modeled as a mixture of local earlier Neolithic populations and populations from the northeastern part of the Near East (e.g. Zagros Mountains, Ethnic groups in the Caucasus, Caucasians/Origin of the Armenians, Armenians and possibly, Hurrians)". Reasons for the continuity include resilience from the Bronze Age collapse, which was mostly true for inland cities such as Tel Megiddo and Abel-beth-maachah, Tel Abel Beth Maacah. Elsewhere, Europeans, European-related and East African-related components were added to the population, from a north-south and south-north gradient respectively. Neolithic Europe#Genetics, Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans and Somalis were used as representatives.

Notes

References

Sources

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Etymology

Biblical narrative

Definition of Israelite

Biblical theories on Israelite origins

Historical Israelites

Origins

Early Israelite settlements

Monarchic period

United Monarchy

Kingdoms of Israel and Judah

Later history

Modern-day groups seen as descendants, or claiming connections

Genetics

See also

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading