The Historians' History of the World 02

On their departure from Egypt the Israelites might have entered Canaan direct by the route that skirted the Mediterranean, but there they would have been in danger of attack from the garrisons which occupied the Egyptian fortresses or from the Philistines. They therefore chose a much longer route, and betook themselves to the desert. The kings of Egypt possessed, or had possessed, important metallurgical works in the peninsula of Sinai. Perhaps the fugitives wished to seize upon them. The Bible does not say so, but some of the legends it relates might well incline us to believe it; the fashioning of the golden calf, the brazen serpent, and the ornaments of the tabernacle presuppose a settled position and a command of material ill compatible with the wandering life of a caravan, and easier to explain by an Israelite occupation of the copper mines of Sinai.

The transition from nomadic to sedentary life must of necessity have been slow and gradual, and there is nothing that obliges us to say with Goethe that the Bible exaggerates the length of the sojourn in the wilderness. Israel dreamed of a land flowing with milk and honey, but, pending its arrival there, led its flocks where they could find pasture, and settled as best it could in the lands of which it could possess itself. It endeavoured to conclude alliances with the inhabitants of the desert, who were of the same race; with the Midianites, for example, that they might serve “as eyes,” that is, as guides to the tribes. This alliance with the Midianites is indicated in the Bible by the visit of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, who, when he hears of the passage of the Red Sea, proclaims Jehovah the greatest of all gods. But alien tribes did not always exhibit the same good will; witness the struggle against Amalek. It is probable that, on leaving Sinai, the Israelites bent their steps towards the frontiers of Canaan, and that, repulsed in that direction, they once more took the southern road and skirted the mountains of the land of the Edomites, so to turn towards the east. In Deuteronomy, Jehovah commands his people not to molest the Edomites, who had already been seized with dread of them, and even to pay for the food and water of which they should have need, because Jehovah had given Seir to Edom for an inheritance. The same admonition is given with regard to the Moabites and the Ammonites, for these peoples also had received their land from Jehovah.

The children of Lot, that is, the Ammonites and Moabites, were settled in the country east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan; but the Amorites, having crossed the Jordan, took part of the territory of the Moabites from them. The Israelites, who were then wandering in the deserts that lay to the east of the land of Moab, defeated the Amorites, probably with the help of the Moabites. The tribes of Reuben and Gad, who had doubtless borne the brunt of the conflict, occupied the land between the Arnon and the Jabbok, promising to co-operate later with the rest of the children of Israel. All the cities of the conquered country were “devoted,” that is to say, all the inhabitants were massacred, men, women and children; “there was none left remaining.” Immediately after this conquest the Bible places that of the land of Bashan, whose king, Og, was the last of the race of Giants (Rephaïm). All the inhabitants of Bashan were likewise massacred, according to Deuteronomy, and in the Bible these two wars are placed before the death of Moses. There are, however, several passages in the Book of Judges from which it must be inferred that the land of Bashan or Gilead was not conquered till later. As for the legend of Balaam, related in the Book of Numbers immediately after the conquest of Bashan, it is now acknowledged that it must have been composed during the last days of the kingdom of Israel, probably in the reign of Jeroboam II. It was inspired by hatred of Moab and contains allusions to Assyria. At the period of this conquest the Israelites had no reason to fear the Assyrians, of whose existence they were not even aware, and to them the Moabites, far from being enemies, were natural allies and auxiliaries, as were the Ammonites and the Edomites.