Israelites Definition, History & Religion

The Ancient Israelites

The ancient Israelites were a Hebraic group of people who lived in the ancient Middle East. Sometime in the ninth or tenth century B.C., they wrote and codified the Hebrew Bible, largely the same material as the Christian Old Testament, and are considered the ancestors to the world's Jewish population of today.

The origins of the ancient Israelites span 1800 - 1200 B.C. The dates given for this period are only rough approximations. Our only sources for this era are vague references largely from the Hebrew Bible. Regardless of the issues with dating, it is likely that the Israelites began as semi-nomadic pastoral tribes migrating West through Mesopotamia and Sumer. Although originally settling in Canaan (modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon), a large portion of Israelites migrated to Egypt sometime in the 16th or 17th centuries B.C. Likely sometime during the 14th century B.C., Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and back to Canaan. Gradually, the pastoral Israelites adopted sedentary, agricultural lifestyles.

Early Iron Age Culture

From 1200 - 1020 B.C., Israel went through was is known as the Early Iron Age. The growth of Israelite settlements and culture coincided with the gradual breakdown of Canaanite city-states and power. By 1200 B.C., sources show the first evidence of people in Canaan referring to themselves as 'Israelites,' and the Stele of the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah, who ruled from 1213-1203, explicitly called the territory 'Israel.'

Israelite society in this period had coalesced into 12 separate tribes, with ten in Northern Canaan and two in the South. The tribes practiced self-governance, with each tribe appointing its own executive council. This situation fostered internal strife between neighboring tribes, however, and in the face of outside military threats from the Phoenicians and the Philistines, the 12 tribes banded together and appointed a pan-tribal king, Saul, at about 1020 B.C.

United Kingdom of Israel

The United Kingdom of Israel spanned 1020 - 921 B.C. This was a period that saw Saul fail miserably in his kingship, mismanaging affairs and angering the tribes, and soon after his death his son was displaced by David, at approximately 1000 B.C. David succeeded in unifying the tribes, instituting the first Kingdom of Israel. As king he defeated the Philistines, consolidated his power by firmly controlling the councils of the tribes and through diplomacy with neighboring states like Egypt. He also instituted a forced labor system to build infrastructure throughout the kingdom.

Although David's reign was successful, it pales in comparison to that of his son, King Solomon. Solomon expanded the kingdom to its greatest extent, encompassing nearly all of what is today modern Israel and Palestine, as well as parts of Western Syria. Solomon moved the capital of the kingdom to Jerusalem, where he built extensively.