The Highways of the King

The Highways of the King

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

Ancient Hebrew has two primary words for transportation routes: messilah, meaning “highway,” and derekh meaning “road.” From earliest times trade routes linked cities and kingdoms throughout the Middle East. The most important and well-traveled routes were the Via Maris (Way of the Sea) that followed the coast almost from Egypt all the way to Lebanon, and the King’s Road, running up central Palestine, paralleling the Jordan. Maintaining these roads was important for religious, as well as economic, reasons. Since all Israelites worshipped at a central location, travel was constant and required by the Torah. The maintenance of the roads to the Cities of Refuge was even more crucial.

It is very difficult to get a clear picture of where roads and highways were once located, but a great deal of effort has been put into doing so. The Bible provides us with very little information regarding either their locations or description, but does contain a few allusions to their construction and maintenance. Isaiah talks about hills being leveled; Josephus wrote of Solomon paving the roads to Jerusalem with black stone. Archival texts, itineraries and military annals collected from the Biblical period throughout the Middle and Near East allow us to make a reasonably accurate estimate of how far one could travel in a day: about 17 to 23 miles, whether by land or by sea.

                To the modern reader, references to “highways” conjures up a very different picture than the Iron Age reality. Late in the 13^th century B.C.E. (during the time of the Judges), an Egyptian official was sent on a trip through Palestine. Fortunately for us, he kept a detailed record of his journey—and he spared no details when describing the condition of the roads:

“…the sky is darkened by day [because the road] is overgrown with cypresses and oaks and cedars which reach the heavens. Lions are more numerous than leopards or bears [and it is] surrounded by Bedouin on [every] side of it…Behold, ambushers wait in a ravine 2000 cubits deep, filled with boulders and pebbles…the narrow valley is dangerous with Bedouin hidden under the bushes. Some of them are four or five cubits from their noses to the heel, and fierce of face. Their hearts are not mild, and they do not listen to wheedling. You are alone; there is no messenger with you, no army host behind you. You find no scout, that he might make you a way of crossing. You come to a decision to go forward, although you do not know the road. Shuddering seizes you, [the hair of] your head stands up, and your soul lies in your hand. Your path is filled with boulders and pebbles, without a toe hold for passing by, overgrown with reeds, thorns, brambles and ‘wolf’s-paws’. The ravine is on one side of you, and the mountain rises on the other. You go on jolting, with your chariot on its side, afraid to press your horse too hard.”

                When Pharoah Thutmosis III traveled the “highway” sometime between 1490 and 1436 B.C.E. (the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan or shortly thereafter), he reported that parts of it were so narrow that his horses had to walk single file—a singularly dangerous formation for an army. The passage of three and a half centuries didn’t see much improvement: in around 1100 B.C.E. (about the time of the birth of David), Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I wrote that he had to send engineers ahead of his army with copper pickaxes to make the road passable for his chariots. There were portions of the road that proved too rough—charioteers and cavalry were forced to dismount and pick their way through on foot.

                When we imagine the travels of people in the time of David, then, we should include in that mental picture a sense of just how difficult travel was. Wealthier people may have ridden on donkeys or used them to carry their burdens. Many sojourners likely took a siesta to avoid traveling in the oppressive heat of the Mediterranean day; night travel also served as an additional way to avoid detection by highwaymen. They crossed the miles on narrow, winding paths, choked with mud after winter rains, heavily rutted throughout the summer. They tried to avoid the deep canyons cut by rivers that raged during rainstorms, as well as the disease-infested swamps, barren deserts and broad badlands of sharp, hardened volcanic stone. Mountain roads took them up steep slops broken by twisting gorges; the ranges could be crossed only at well-traveled passes. They sought safety in numbers, traveling whenever possible in caravans.

                While writing The Eternal Throne Chronicles, one of the challenges is that I continually discover new details about the biblical world as the project continues. I gratefully incorporate them into future novels but—alas—there is nothing I can do about those already published. The state of roads in Israel is one of those details. I look forward, though, to traveling those roads with fresh eyes in the near future as I write the first chapters of Hero of Israel.

                For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

"Judge of Israel" Book release party

Thanks to everyone who came to my book release party--and for all of you who wanted to come but couldn't make it. It was a huge success. I have now sold out the "limited edition" printing of Judge of Israel and am getting ready to order the second printing in the next couple of days. Thanks everyone who has purchased or requested a copy of the book. I've been filling orders furiously--shipped a copy of both books to Israel on Wednesday! If you don't want a signed copy, or you live close enough that you can bring it to me to sign, you can order a copy of the book here:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/judge-of-israel/11773632

Here are some pictures from my recent release party for "Judge of Israel." I'm not sure if we remembered to take photos of the food--I hope so. If so, I'll post them later. The food was incredible--thanks to Chelsey, Hassana, Shalako, and Reina. And thank you, Stephanie, for letting us take over your home for the day.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=66016&id=1019111394

Agriculture in Ancient Israel

by Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                Sizeable chapters and even entire books have been written on the subject of the agricultural practices of the Israelites in Bible times. This article just skims the surface, but I have tried to include details that I felt readers might find interesting or particularly informative.

                It is extremely difficult for modern people to comprehend what agriculture was to the ancients—it was, as the word itself suggests, a culture that influenced every aspect of their lives. Israelites felt a connection to the land that most of us will never experience. Common people came to be known as amha’arets, or “people of the land” because their identities were so inextricably tied up with the earth upon which they walked.

                They were, at least prior to the period of the monarchy, self-sufficient farmers; each family was an economically independent unit. That meant that when they sat down to a meal of mutton, they were eating an animal that their hands had slaughtered and dressed, but also one that they had watched be born (even helped to deliver), carried as a lamb, bandaged and shorn. During the winter, they had hand fed it food that they had grown, using tools they had made from trees, stones, and ore that came from the land that God had given them and that had been in their family for hundreds of generations—land that had never belonged to anyone else and, from their perspective, never would. The knife they used to slaughter, the staff they leaned upon and the clothes they wore were all made by their own hands from materials they had harvested.

                This little corner of the earth has always been remarkably productive. Somewhere between 1991 and 1786 B.C.E., an Egyptian scribe wrote the document now called “TheStory of Si-nuhe” that described Palestine this way: “It was a good land…Figs were in it, and grapes. It had more wine than water. Plentiful was its honey, abundant its olives. Every [kind of] fruit was on its trees. Barley was there, and emmer. There was no limit to any [kind of] cattle.”

                Unlike Egypt that depended on the flooding of the Nile, or Mesopotamia that depended on irrigation, the people of Israel lived and died by rainfall. Droughts were deadly serious events—lengthy ones completely destroyed the economy. They were also one of the primary bases for war. During times of drought, farmers who lived in the drier areas would retreat to parts of the country that received more rainfall or heavier dew, or was nearer to some more permanent water source. The land they left, barren as it was, was still better than the land inhabited by the desert nomads to the east. They quickly moved in to take advantage of it. When the rains finally came and the farmers wanted to return to their ancestral lands, they had to fight to get it back.

                Some of what we know about Israelite farming is based on a broken piece of pottery upon which is scratched a little poem—probably some sort of mnemonic writing exercise done by a child. It is called the Gezer Calendar, and it says:

The two months are olive harvest

The two months are planting grain

The two months are late planting

The month is hoeing up of flax,

The month is barley harvest,

The month is harvest and festivity

The two months are vine tending

The month is summer fruit

                Most of the land was hilly and rocky, and farmers were obliged to cut the hillsides into narrow terraces and to fell whatever trees had been spared from the blacksmith’s forge and the carpenter’s saw. Family farms were small because they required constant tending and because it was easier to supply water to a smaller area during the dry summer months. The early rain mentioned in the Calendar (October and November), softened the ground, which had become rock-hard during the summer, for plowing. Such plowing was frequently unpleasant work, since it was done during the cold torrential rain of late fall. The rain was so torrential, in fact, that there was constant danger of flash floods and serious erosion of the shallow soil in the hill country.

                By spring the “latter rain” came, concluding the rainy season and heralding the beginning of the harvest. The writer of the Gezer Calendar mentions harvest and festivity in one phrase because the two were one and the same. For a people whose survival depended on a successful harvest (and who had subsisted on stored food for many months), bringing in the crops was the most exciting time of the year.

                But some crops remained in the ground through the summer, and it was these that were most at risk from the changeable weather of the Levant. Summer brought hot winds (siroccos) from the desert, parching the land and carrying plagues of locusts. The wind might blow nonstop for up to seven days, raising the temperature to as much as 20 degrees above average. The only moisture the crops would get for several months was the water that prudent farmers had managed to store in underground cisterns, and the heavy dews created by cold air from Mount Hermon’s snowy cap meeting the warmer air from the eastern desert.

                As the grain crops (wheat and barley) were harvested with plowshares and sickles (iron ones, during the time of King David), they were carried to threshing floors, almost always located atop a high hill. There the poor whipped them with willow switches to separate the grain kernels from the stalks. In later times, oxen were allowed to tread over them; their sharp hooves did the work of the willow switches. Later still, the oxen would drag sledges behind them—an indication of the increasing volume of grain being harvested.

                Once the grains had been separated, the farmers stepped in with wood-tined pitchforks and began to toss the harvest into the air. The hot eastern wind blew over the hills and carried away the lightest parts—the chaff. The fruit fell back to the threshing floor where it could be collected and placed into storehouses.

                As touched on by the Gezer Calendar, the primary crops were grain, wine, and olive oil. Other standards included millet, peas, lentils, melons, cucumbers, beans, mallow, sorrel, artichokes, figs, pomegranates and dates. These latter three, along with wild honey, were the only sources of sugar. Flax was grown in the south to make into linen, and many Israelite mothers no doubt had a small herb garden somewhere near the family home.

                The thirteenth tribe, the tribe of Levi who served as the religious leaders of the people, had no farmland allocated to them (although they did gain land of their own as time progressed). They were supported by the tithe, by which every family donated one-tenth of its harvest to care for the needs of the Levites and their families. The Levites, in turn, donated one-tenth of this to the priestly families among them. Additionally, every time a family began to harvest a crop (whether wheat, grapes, or even the herbs in their little family garden), they were required by the Torah to donate the “firstfruits” of that harvest to Jehovah by offering it to the priests at the Temple. The amount was not specified; it seems that was determined by the giver’s appreciation and generosity.

                One final aspect bears mentioning: every seven years, the Torah ordered, they were not to plant any crops. Instead they were to rely on Jehovah to make their stored foodstuffs last until the year was over. In addition to being a powerful lesson in reliance on Jehovah for their sustenance, this practice also allowed the soil to recuperate, and similar practices are employed by many farmers today.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

Sicko! Medicine and Health in Bible Times

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

    Ancient Egypt, famous to this day for its advances in architecture, astronomy, mathematics and art has no such claim in the field of medicine. In fact, ancient Middle Eastern cultures in general shared a basic view of disease: it was caused by some form of demonic possession. Whips, masks, and statuettes were used to frighten these spirits away.

                In Babylon (present day Iraq), doctors would remove the liver of a sheep and consult it to diagnose their patient’s disease; clay models of sheep’s livers have been found with diagrams explaining what the doctor should look for. Once the malevolent spirit had been identified, the physician/priest would perform an exorcism and then prescribe some sort of healing regimen to help the sufferer’s body recover from the damage the spirit had caused to his or her body.

                Although at times this regimen included ingredients now known to have some medicinal value—caper, mandrake, and garlic were common—records from the period make it clear that they were valued for the magical, rather than their medical, properties.  An ostraca from around 2000 B.C.E. instructs doctors to “pulverize…the dried vine, pine tree, and plum tree; pour beer over it, rub with oil, fasten as a poultice.”

                The Code of Hammurabi outlines some laws regarding medicine. If, for example, a doctor is operating on a patient’s eye using a copper lancet and the patient is blinded, then the doctor’s eye was also put out with the same copper lancet.

                As mentioned, Egypt did not build on the practice of the early Mesopotamians. We know many details of their medical practices from the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, the Papyrus Ebers, and other papyri from medical schools.

Egyptians, too, believed healing to be a spiritual process, and relied on the gods of healing: Imhotep, Apis, and Isis. Unfortunately, the “medicines” they developed to aid this process were no benefit to their patients. Ground donkey teeth, worm’s blood, and other outlandish items were often prescribed. The Papyrus Ebers has a recipe for a poultice to treat skin conditions: mix human excrement with fresh milk and apply it to the wound after the scab has fallen off. Equally effective was the remedy for drawing out splinters: cook worms’ blood in oil; cook a mole in oil; crush the mole with the worm’s blood and mix in ass’s dung and fresh milk. Apply liberally to the wound.

It is these bizarre practices that make the medicinal practices of the ancient Israelites so striking. The Torah forbade them from touching corpses, so they could make no post-mortem examinations to develop their knowledge of anatomy. They believed in a connection between good health and a life of devotion to God.  But their practices indicate a thorough understanding of human health unequalled by any civilization of the time.

Leviticus chapter 11 speaks of disease being spread by insects, rodents, and even contaminated water—something that would have made no sense to people unfamiliar with the concept of germs. It ran contrary to the beliefs of every other culture at the time.

A person who did (inadvertently) touch a dead body was required to wash thoroughly afterward—something not widely practiced before the last century. Deuteronomy chapter 23 mandates the safe disposal of sewage, protecting the people against fly-borne salmonellosis, shigellosis, typhoid, and other diseases that continue to kill thousands of people every year who do not use such precautions.

In fact, personal and social hygiene were emphasized in all aspects of life, making the Israelites unique among all Bronze Age people. Leviticus chapter 11 details a number of sanitation laws, all of which make excellent medical sense.

The nations that lived around Israel in Canaan practiced incest, bestiality, and orgies as part of their worship—hardly healthy practices physically or psychologically. Laws regarding sexual conduct and forbidding intermarriage with those who practiced such things no doubt protected the Israelites from sexually transmitted diseases.

Circumcision of newborn boys was to be done on the 8^th day of the child’s life. Only in the past century have doctors discovered that the blood clotting element Vitamin K only reaches an adequate level by the 8^th day, and that the clotting agent prothrombin is typically higher on the 8^th day than on any other day of the child’s life.

The Sabbath law required all people to take a day every week for rest, relaxation and time with family and friends. While the Bible does not make any direct connection between observing the Sabbath and physical health, it is inarguably psychologically beneficial.

Poultices of dried figs and oil were used to treat boils—and are still used today to good effect. Oil and wine were poured onto wounds, wine was mixed with myrrh and other natural narcotics as a painkiller, and “balm of gilead” (likely an aromatic excretion from an evergreen tree) was effective in soothing irritated skin.

By Isaiah’s time, the Israelites had developed some forms of surgery. Skulls and diagrams found in the area of Jerusalem show clear evidence of trepanning: removing a section of bone from the skull to relieve pressure on the brain. This could be life-saving—although the number of skulls found with holes still in them seem to indicate the procedure was rarely successful. (Patients who healed would have the piece of skull replaced and the skin sewn back over it).

The conclusion many have drawn from such unusual medical practices (for the time) is that the Israelites had access to medical, biological, and physiological knowledge far ahead of their time.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

Of Hearth and Home: Common Houses in Ancient Israel

Of Hearth and Home:

Common Houses in Ancient Israel

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                The design of houses in the Middle East has remained fairly uniform through the centuries, so that even today one can find families living in houses that are virtually identical (in architecture, at least) to the homes of three millennia ago.

                The Israelites started out living in tents, as did many of the peoples of the Levant—and even after they had built more substantial homes, it was not uncommon for families to live in tents during the summer harvest season. Cave homes were also relatively common, like the one Lot lived in (Genesis 19:30) or the more elaborate caves of the Edomites at Petra (Obadiah 3).

                The standard house within the borders of a town, though, was blockish in design, comprised of a single rectangular room for the very poor, or a larger square with an open courtyard in the center for the wealthier. The roof was flat and typically reached by means of an external staircase—either outside the home or within the courtyard.

                Inside was usually a single room, around 10 feet square. The thick brick walls had niches carved in them for storing food and utensils, and a single, narrow window to let in light and let out smoke; it might be covered with a wooden lattice (Proverbs 7:6) in summer and a skin or wool curtain in winter. The door was nothing more than a curtain in poorer homes; wealthier citizens could afford a wooden door with a bar.

                The floor was packed earth, often in two levels: a lower section into which one entered when coming through the door, and a raised portion at the back where the family slept and ate. Historians speculate that one of the reasons for this raised section was to keep livestock from walking on the sleeping family when the animals were brought inside at night during winter. In any case, to our modern noses the houses would have been redolent with the smell of animals and smoke.

                Furniture was a luxury. Common people had a straw mat for a bed, and their “table” was simply a rug laid on the floor during meal times. The wealthier had couches, divans, tables, and chairs—sometimes exquisitely carved.

                Homes were constructed of bricks of sun-dried mud or fired clay until the time of King David. Then, with the availability of iron tools, houses of cut stone became more common. Unless the home was of finished stone, it was sealed with mortar or whitewash, designed to protect it from the weather. The idea was only moderately successful—these homes required constant maintenance. The walls provided a warm, protected environment for vermin—no doubt the rustling of rodents, birds, and snakes were common noises in the Israelite home.

                Homes in Galilee were typically built using black basalt. Those constructed along the Mediterranean coast were made of yellow sandstone, and the rest of the country used white limestone.

                The roof of the Middle Eastern home served many purposes and was, in some ways, the most important area of the house. It was constructed by laying brushwood across sycamore (cedar or cypress for the wealthy) beams, then binding and covering it with layers of mud. These roofs were, as you can imagine, particularly susceptible to rain. A heavy roller was kept handy to pack the mud down again after precipitation had softened it.

                In spite of this precaution, roofs leaked. Since the mud that made them was full of seeds and roots, plants began to sprout after each rain; roofs must have turned green during the wet season.

                The roof provided a cool, quiet place for the family to gather, for women to do their work, and for crops to be dried for storage. The Torah required that family heads install a parapet around the roof—no doubt because so much time was spent atop it that falls could have been common.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

Partridge to Pistachios: Food in Old Testament Times

Partridge to Pistachios: Food in Old Testament Times

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                Our modern preoccupation with food would have been foreign to all but the wealthiest people of ancient Palestine. As it is for subsistence farmers and pastoral people today, food was a means of sustenance, not pleasure. This is one of the reasons harvest times were so exciting: they were the only times of the year when food and drink flowed freely.

                The Israelites ate two meals each day—a light breakfast during a pause in the morning’s labor, and a heavier dinner at home after the air had cooled in the evening. Breakfast foods were simple and quick: bread from the day before, fruits, and perhaps milk or cheese. During harvest season workers would simply eat the raw grain by the handfuls or parch it over a small fire. Families would expect to eat the same meal everyday for weeks or even months—until the next crop was harvested.

                The evening meal, though, allowed the housewife and her daughters to exercise their culinary talents--within the limits of their budget, of course. Bread (leavened and unleavened) was the staple, made from freshly milled barley (for the poor), millet, or wheat, and baked into thin, flat loaves in charcoal-fired ovens. Hebrews did not use utensils at the table; they used pieces of bread to scoop food from the communal pot. The bread might be smeared with a little fresh butter, made by placing cream in a skin bag and shaking and squeezing it.

                The common people at meat only rarely. Animals were valuable sources of milk and wool, and their flesh was hard to preserve; they were slaughtered only for special occasions. (The Philistines had an alternative solution to the preservation problem—they would cut off one or two of the animal’s legs and bind the wounds, keeping them alive until they were ready to eat the rest). When the occasion did call for it, though, there were a variety of meats available: veal, beef, mutton, goat, partridge, quail, geese, pigeons, fish, and lamb. The wealthy may also have had access to deer, gazelle, roebucks, and other birds. The Torah forbade the eating of fat, so the meat (already lean by our standards) would have been carefully trimmed and then boiled (in water or milk) or roasted with onions, garlic, or herbs.

                Water was drunk when available, but this was not often. Most water that the common people had access to was not fit for drinking. Women had to laboriously draw clean water from deep wells, and it was often tepid and full of silt. Milk was the drink of choice, whether from camels, sheep, goats, or (les commonly) cows. The Bible only rarely uses the Hebrew word for fresh milk. The common practice was to put milk into a goat-skin bottle, where it thickened slightly and went sour; to the Israelite palette, nothing was better for quenching thirst. Milk was also used to make cheese (probably in the form of curds) and yoghurt.

                In the spring, greens like lettuce, endive, horseradish, parsley and watercress appeared on tables as salads, perhaps blended with mint or chopped cucumbers and onions. Housewives flavored bean or lentil stews with leeks and garlic. Most meals featured raisins or dates (often pressed into cakes like pemmican) and whatever fruits were in season: grapes, pomegranates, figs, olives, apples, and others.

                Dessert was also reserved for special occasions, and fruit was sweet enough to be a treat to the ancient palette. But locust beans (carob pods) could be stewed and prepared as sweetmeats, or confections made from honey, dates, almonds, pistachios, and gum Arabic. Wine chilled with snow from Mount Hermon or expensive, imported melons might have finished off the meal.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

Magic in the Torah: Supernatural Manifestations in Israelite Worship

by Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                As common and important as sacred rituals and divine interactions are in the Biblical record, everyday ancient Hebrew worship lacked the supernatural element so common in other religious practices of the times. Canaanite wives placed clay idols of women with swollen bellies around their homes in the hope of getting pregnant. Mothers hung amulets around their children’s necks to ward off evil spirits. Diviners consulted the stars, the internal organs of slaughtered animals, the swirling of oil poured on water, the smoke of incense, and cast dice to foretell the future. Sacred texts uncovered in the ruins of the Hittite city of Ugarit describe the Dagil Itstsuri as priests who gained divine direction by observing the flight patterns of birds. The Gdazerin would make voodoo-doll-like wax images of calves and then cut them in half to cause the death of an oath-breaker. Newborns were buried under the cornerstones of buildings to guarantee the safety of the structure.

                Israelite worship did make use of potent symbolisms at times: libations poured out over an altar; sheaves of grain waved back and forth in the temple in offering. A red heifer that had never been used for work was burned with hyssop and scarlet cord and the collected ashes were mixed with spring water to make “holy water.” This was sprinkled over people, garments, or domiciles that had become ceremonially unclean. But the “cleansing” was understood to be symbolic, not miraculous.

                There were, though, a handful of common supernatural elements to the Torah, or the Law given to Moses by which the Israelites were to live.

The Urim and Thummim

                In Exodus chapter 8 Moses adorns his brother, Aaron, in the ceremonial clothing of the High Priest. In verse 8, he puts a breastpiece on him—a sheet of worked gold in which were set twelve gemstones representing the twelve tribes of Israel. In the breastpiece he places “the Urim and the Thummim.” The actual translation of the Hebrew here (ha’urim’ we’eth-hattummim’) is unclear. The Greek Septuagint calls them “the explanation (manifestation) and the truth”; the Syriac Peshitta opts for “the light and the perfection”; and the Latin Vulgate “the doctrine and the truth.”

                Literal translation aside, scholars generally agree that the Urim and Thummim were some sort of sacred lots kept in a pouch in the High Priest’s breastpiece “over his heart” (Exodus 28:30). A perusal of 1 Samuel chapters 14 and 23 indicate that they seemed to produce “yes” or “no” answers, and chapters 14 and 28 add the possibility that they could also give “no answer.” Jewish tradition holds that they were two flat stones, each black on one side and white on the other. The High Priest would inquire of Jehovah with a “yes” or “no” question and toss the stones. If both stones landed with the white side up, the answer was “yes”; black sides up meant “no.” If one white and one black side were revealed, it indicated a divine unwillingness to answer for some reason.

                This arrangement made the monarchy dependent on the priesthood for divine direction, creating a sort of “checks and balances” system to prevent the king from gaining too much power.

                According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 48b), the Urim and Thummim were no longer used after the destruction of the temple in 607 B.C.E.

The Shechinah

                The original house of worship for Israel was the Tabernacle, a portable temple constructed in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt. This rectangular prism was divided into two sections: the “Holy” and the “Holy of Holies.” The Holy of Holies was a perfect cube in which was kept the Ark of the Covenant. As most people now know from Hollywood’s depictions, this ark had a lid adorned with two cherubs facing one another. According to Exodus 25:21 and 22, the Divine Presence resided (in a symbolic sense) between the wings of the two cherubs in a “cloud” (Leviticus 16:2). The cloud was luminous—it was the only source of light within this room, wherein the High Priest went once a year during the Day of Atonement ceremony to sprinkle blood upon the Ark and the floor. Only the High Priest ever saw it, but its existence is attested to by a number of the men who bore this title.

                In the Targums (Aramaic translations of the Bible from the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries), this miraculous light is called the Shechinah. Jewish tradition also records that anyone who saw this light unworthily—that is, anyone but the High Priest, and even him on any day but the Day of Atonement—would immediately be struck dead. For this reason in later years the priests would tie a cord to the ankle of the High Priest when he entered the Holy of Holies on that day. If he had somehow dishonored his office and was struck dead, they wanted to have a way to pull the body out without entering the sacred chamber themselves.

The Falling Away of the Thigh

                The most unusual of these supernatural manifestations, though, is found at Numbers chapter 5 verses 12 through 31. Here the Torah describes what should be done if a man suspected his wife of having been unfaithful (the colorful Hebrew says “the spirit of jealousy has passed upon him, and he has become suspicious of his wife’s faithfulness”).

                The husband brings his wife to the Tabernacle with an offering of barley flour for “bringing error to remembrance.” The wife is brought “before Jehovah”—probably a reference to her standing alone (without her husband) near the entrance of the Tabernacle. The priest gathered some dust from the floor of the Tabernacle and sprinkled it into “holy water” (probably just clean water in this case, taken from the basin in which the priests ritually washed) in an earthenware vessel. The mixture thus produced was called “the bitter water that brings a curse.” The priest then ‘loosened the hair of the woman’s head,’ removing the tsa’iph or head covering all Israelite women wore in public. This may very well have been the psychological equivalent to having her stand naked in front of him—not, of course, in a sexual sense, but in that the woman would have felt very exposed. The grain offering her husband had brought was put into her hands.

                The priest then intoned:

“If no man has lain down with you and if while under your husband you have not turned aside in any uncleanness, be free of the effect of this bitter water that brings a curse. But you, in case you have turned aside while under your husband and in case you have defiled yourself and some man has put in you his seminal emission, besides your husband…May Jehovah set you for a cursing and an oath in the midst of your people by Jehovah’s letting your thigh fall away, and your belly swell. And this water that brings a curse must enter into your intestines to cause your belly to swell and the thigh to fall away.” To this the woman must say: “Amen! Amen!” (Numbers 5:19-22)

                After the woman so swore, the priest wrote a copy of the above onto a small scroll and then washed that scroll in “the bitter water that brings a curse.” He tossed some of the grain offering onto the altar and made the woman drink the water.

                According to Numbers 5 the result to a guilty woman was disastrous: “The water that brings a curse must then enter into her as something bitter, and her belly must swell, and her thigh must fall away, and the woman must become a cursing in among her people.”

                The thigh was commonly used by Jewish scribes as a stand-in word for the genitals (they could not bring themselves to write the Hebrew words for reproductive organs in the holy book). The “falling away” referred to here was an idiomatic reference to becoming sterile—although it appears that the swelling of the belly was literal and became an outward sign of the woman’s guilt.

                In the Torah the punishment for adultery was death. As with all criminal penalties, the sentence could not be executed unless there were two or three witnesses to the crime. Evidently since the crime of adultery was highly unlikely to have the prerequisite two witnesses, this alternative method was provided for establishing guilt. Even when the woman failed the ritual she was not put to death. The Mishnah seems to indicate that this was because the identity of the guilty man was still unknown, and it would be an injustice for the woman to be executed and not the man.

(All Scripture quotations taken from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1984).

Israelite Tribal Heraldry

            Our wide-range view of the history of Israel, taken with the perspective of passing millennia, gives us a picture of a single, united nation. That concept has become a prominent political theme since the Second World War. But when we narrow our focus to the ninth and tenth centuries B.C.E., a different picture emerges.

            It was at Mount Sinai in the year 1513 B.C.E. that Israel became a nation. It was comprised of an amalgamation of thirteen tribes and countless foreigners who joined themselves to those tribes (including entire peoples, such as the Gibeonites of Joshua chapter 9). It would be many centuries before Israel viewed itself as a single people. Tribal loyalty remained stronger than national until after Saul’s day, perhaps reinforced by divine edicts forbidding intermarrying between tribes and strict delineation of unalterable tribal territories. Throughout the period of the judges (the three hundred years between 1450-1117 B.C.E.) the tribes are primarily described as operating somewhat independently, and inter-tribal civil wars and conflicts break out more than once.

            Under these circumstances, over a period of over 700 years of tribal intermarriage, each tribe would have no doubt developed their own subculture as well as distinct genetic traits and characteristics. It was possible for an Israelite to identify a man of another tribe by his looks, dress, or accent (Judges 8:24, 12:1-6).

            The tribes also had unique military roles or specialties. Chaim Herzog (former President of the State of Israel) and Mordechai Gichon (Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University) have written a wonderful book entitled “Battles of the Bible” (Greenhill Books, Lionel Leventhal Limited, 1997). In it they describe the various tribes’ “military proficiencies.” The Benjaminites were ambidextrous missile warriors with sling and bow (1 Chronicles 12:2; Benjaminite boys had their dominant hands tied behind their backs for long periods of time to force them to develop ambidextrousness). Judges 20:16 says of the Benjaminite slingers: “They would not miss.” The Gadites were highly mobile “shield and buckler” warriors, ‘as swift as the roes upon the mountains’ (1 Chronicles 12:8). The Zebulunites were experts with all weapons and apparently known for their fearlessness—the writer of Chronicles says they could “keep rank” in the direst of circumstances (ibid., v.33). Judeans were rank and file spear and shield warriors (ibid., v.24), as were the men of Naphtali (ibid., v. 34). The tribe of Issachar is described as having an ‘understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do’—apparently indicating that they were specialists in military intelligence, logistics, and tactics.

            While Israel was traveling in the wilderness, their camps were organized by tribes, and each tribal encampment was marked with a ‘sign’ or ‘banner’ (Numbers 2:2). While the Bible does not give descriptions of these signs, it seems that they served a similar purpose to heraldic coats of arms in medieval times. Such designations would have been very useful in organizing a camp of upwards of three million people. Some scholars feel that these ensigns were likely based on the prophetic descriptions of each tribe given by the patriarch Jacob on his deathbed (Genesis Chapter 49): a lion for Judah, a ship for Zebulun, an ass for Issachar, a snake for Dan, a deer for Naphtali, a sapling for Joseph, and a wolf for Benjamin. 

Editing progress

I am in Bellingham this weekend to give a talk about the 20th chapter of 2 Chronicles. We are staying with friends, allowing me to ignore phone calls and escape everyday distractions and work on editing Judge of Israel. So here I sit, Bolt curled up at my side, a view of Bellingham's storm-tossed bay outside the window--blogging instead of editing.

Prophet of Israel on Kindle

Prophet of Israel will be available as a free Kindle download from Amazon.com within the next few days. If you are a Kindle user, tell your friends about it!

Off to the editor

I am passing off the manuscript to Kate Goschen's able hands today. While she works her magic, I will work on finalizing the cover, final formatting, release plans, and registering for Bowkers, copyright, ISBN number, and Lulu Publishing's marketing package.

I have started fiddling with the outline for Book Three: "Hero of Israel" but it is in its very early stages. I have a rough outline I wrote several years ago, but there is a lot of fleshing out to do before any real writing can be started.

In the meantime, I will start planning the release party...

Original Postcard Mailer for Prophet

This postcard, designed by Jordan Avery, was part of the original marketing of "Prophet."

Sequim Gazette Article on release of "Prophet"

Avani Nadkarni visited me at work one day and wrote this great article announcing the publishing of "Prophet."

"Prophet of Israel" Release Party 2008

Travis and Karli Connely holding one of the first copies of "Prophet of Israel" at the release party in October 2008.

"Judge of Israel"--the new cover

Cover and more

I have very nearly finished the cover of "Judge of Israel." It is based on the same Jordan Avery design as the "Prophet" cover. I am very pleased with how it is turning out. Today Curtis Cosens is coming to update the website and help me finish up with the cover.

I have received Axel's edit (thank you again, Axel). As always, it has many suggestions and ideas that I am very excited about--things that I am certain will improve the book significantly. I am slowly working my way through them and figuring out how best to implement them.

Kate Goschen is ready to start editing as soon as I can get the manuscript to her, but is fairly certain she will not be able to finish the edit by January. So we are settling for an "early in the year" release. Stay tuned for the date of my release party.

Finished First Draft Edit

On Monday I finished the first draft edit of Judge of Israel Next it goes to Axel for his edit/input, and then on to my "real" editor, Kate Goschen. Still on track for a December release (I think).

Elks Lodge Presentation

My thanks to the Sequim Elks Lodge for their hospitality last night in inviting me to present "The Origin of King Arthur." The presentation went very well, with an enthusiastic and appreciative audience response and some great discussions afterward. Thanks also to all those who purchased copies of Prophet of Israel. I hope to hear back from you soon as to how you enjoyed the book.

Beginnings and Endings

The school year is off to a...start. Huge classes are being made feasible by another group of well-behaved students. These kids endlessly amaze me. They keep me humble and make me proud. Of them, that is.

On the other hand, I am making virtually no progress on Judge. A better ending continues to elude me and my editing feels uninspired. I keep plodding (plodding may be to positive a word) forward, hoping to break through and find my pace. Soon, I hope.

In the meantime, I am working on plans for an audio version of Prophet and a new marketing campaign.

Launch of new website

With the help of my web designers Curtis Cosens and Jordan Avery, I have just launched my new webpage at timothywilkinson.net. This is in preparation for the upcoming release of the second book in my Eternal Throne Chronicles, "Judge of Israel" (currently slated for release in December).

I am also scheduled for two upcoming speaking engagements, for those who are interested. I am presenting the lecture/PowerPoint "The Two Eternal Thrones: The Origin of King Arthur" at the Sequim Elk's Club at 6:20 p.m. on 16 September, and on a date TBD in September or early October at the Sequim Library.