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Seals of the King
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Polity in Biblical Israel
http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles3/apl-ch1.htm

Jewish Political Thought

The Polity in Biblical Israel

Authority, Power and Leadership in the Jewish Polity: Cases and Issues - Chapter 1

Daniel J. Elazar

The political experience of ancient Israel as recounted in the Bible laid the foundations of the Jewish political tradition in all its aspects. The Bible's concern with teaching humans, particularly Jews, the right way to live in this world gives its political dimension particular importance. The highly social character of biblical concern with achieving the good life leads to its emphasis on the good commonwealth. The biblical account of the history of the Israelites can be seen in that light.1

At the same time, the biblical discussion of the government of ancient Israel stands at the very beginning of Western political life and thought. The record of that experience represents the oldest stratum in Western political thought and, since the record is derived very directly from the Israelites' experience, the latter is in itself an important factor in the development of Western political institutions.2 If this is more difficult to perceive today than it was in Spinoza's time, it is because the study of the political experience of ancient Israel has been generally neglected since the Reformed Protestant theologians and state-builders and the political philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries paid serious attention to it in shaping the political views of the moderns who were to reject Scripture.3

The political experience of ancient Israel remains the foundation of the Jewish political world view, particularly as it pertains to the organization and government of the Jewish people. In traditional terms, Judaism itself is essentially a theopolitical phenomenon, a means of seeking salvation by constructing God's polity, the proverbial "city upon a hill," through which the covenantal community described in the Bible takes on meaning and fulfills its purpose in the scheme of things. The biblical account of the origins of the Jewish people reflects a blend of kinship and consent that generates a special political culture and a variety of institutions at home in it. A family of tribes becomes a nation by consenting to a common covenant with God and with each other, out of which flow the principles and practices of religious life and political organization that have animated the Jews as a corporate entity ever since.4

Methods and Procedures

Biblical political ideas are expressed through the description of the institutions, events, and prophesies connected with the government of ancient Israel. Less formally articulated than Greek political thought, the biblical political teaching must be discovered in the same manner that all biblical knowledge must emerge, by careful examination and analysis of the text with careful attention to recurring patterns and the reconciliation of apparent contradictions.

Understanding the method necessary to approach the subject, it is indeed possible to learn much about the theory and practice of government in ancient Israel both in terms of the way in which the Israelites governed themselves and in terms of their response to the great questions of politics which they confronted in their unique way, as every people must.

As in the case with other biblical teachings, the Bible does not offer us a philosophically systematic presentation of its political theory or of the workings of particular political institutions. Rather, the theory must be derived inductively from the biblical discussion of the political history and hopes of the Israelites and from biblical critiques of institutions not fully described. Contemporary understanding of biblical political ideas and institutions rests in great measure on our expanded understanding of the political institutions in the ancient Near East as a whole, particularly those of the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. Advances in the study of the history and life of the ancient Near East made during the past two generations have enabled us to better understand the Bible in its political dimension as well as in so many others.5

Constitutional Epochs and Their Characteristics

The political life and thought of ancient Israel can best be understood in light of the constitutional epochs through which the Israelites passed (see Table 1 in Introduction).6 Four constitutional epochs can be identified from the time of nation building connected with the Exodus from Egypt to the completion of the biblical canon. Two others preceded the Exodus. Each was marked by an initial constitutional development that significantly changed the governmental structure, institutions, and functions of the nation, a later modification of that constitutional change in an effort to perfect it, and a final governmental crisis leading to a substantial reconstitution involving more radical changes in structure, institutions, and functions. Each constitutional period lasted approximately three hundred years or nine generations, with a new founding coming in the tenth generation -- a pattern presented in the Bible itself.7

If the present theories are correct, the period of Jewish history prior to the Exodus from Egypt encompassed between five hundred and seven hundred years, or approximately a span of two constitutional epochs. Indeed, the biblical accounts suggest that it can be divided into the epoch of the patriarchs and the epoch of the Egyptian sojourn. during both, the Jewish people had a pre- or proto-national existence. During the first epoch the patriarch was the sole repository of governmental powers. He was governor and military leader and he conducted foreign relations. He also received instructions from God and made the covenants with Him which constituted the constitutional framework for the emergent Jewish people. In that context he prayed, sacrificed, built altars and monuments, and offered blessings.8

At the beginning of the second epoch of Jewish history, the families of the twelve sons of Jacob were well-ensconced in Egypt, living under a foreign rule which sooner or later reduced them to slavery. There were no more patriarchs. In their place are zekenim (elders) and shotrim (maintainers of the peace), officials who administer the customary law of the tribes, perhaps recalling in a latent way the patriarchal covenants.9

The first constitutional epoch after the Exodus stretches from the founding of the Israelite tribal confederacy to the establishment of the monarchy. The founding of the tribal confederacy immediately after the Exodus from Egypt comes simultaneously with the founding of the nation, or the transformation of the Hebrew tribes into a national entity. Since ancient times, Moses has been recognized as the founder of the nation and its constitution-maker.10

The Mosaic constitution laid the foundations for the first Israelite polity, which was organized federally around a loose union of tribes, traditionally twelve in number. This union, perhaps the first true federal system in history, was bound together by a common constitution and law but maintained relatively rudimentary national institutions grafted onto more fully articulated tribal ones whose origins may have antedated the Exodus. This situation prevailed, in great part, because the constitution specified that God Himself was to be considered the direct governor of the nation as a whole, assisted by a "servant" or Prime Minister (Hebrew: Eved Adonai) who would be His representative and who, in turn, would maintain a core of judges and civil servants to handle the transmission of his or, more correctly, God's instructions to the tribal and familial authorities. Depending on the importance of the issue in constitutional terms, the Prime Minister also interacted with the assembly of the children of Israel congregated as a whole -- men, women, and children -- the assembly of all men of military age, a national council representing the tribes, or ad hoc assemblies of tribal elders (zekenim) or delegates (nesi'im) for purposes of policy making.

During for first two generations of the tribal confederacy, a single Eved Adonai, who was granted God's charisma, exercised authority over all the tribes according to the biblical account. Moses and Joshua were the two figures to bear that title and exercise such authority. To the extent that the Eved Adonai's principal function was to serve as God's messenger, as was particularly true in the case of Moses, we already have the embryonic division of powers which was to become classic in the Jewish polity and which a thousand years later was to be defined in terms of three ketarim (literally, crowns or investitures of authority). Under this system the principal task of the Eved Adonai was to bring God's word to the people. This later became the task of the prophets and the soferim ("Scribes") who developed the ketaric terminology.11

The Eved Adonai also shared power with the priests, particularly Aaron and his sons, who had their own covenant with God establishing them as a hereditary priesthood with certain constitutional functions, principally judicial in character, as well as cultic ones.

The principal function of the priests was to provide a channel of communication from the people of God. They continued this function throughout the biblical period, through what was later termed the keter kehunah.

The nesi'im (literally, those raised up, best translated as magistrates) and zekenim (elders) were responsible for the day-to-day governance of the people, a function which was later defined as the keter malkhut (literally, crown of kingship, understood more generally as the domain of civil rule). They had a dual function in that they headed the individual tribes and also participated in the governance of the nation as a whole.12 An additional republican guarantee of this system was the fact that the Israelites had no standing army but relied for protection on the tribal militias consisting of every male age twenty or over.

The entire body politic was known as Adat B'nai Yisrael from the time of the Exodus onward. Edah means congregation or assembly and reflects the popular and republican basis of the Israelite polity. Thus from Sinai onward, constitutional decisions were taken by the entire edah: men, women, and children, assembled together to give their consent, while major policy decisions such as declarations of war were made by the edah in its more limited form of men of military age. Day-to-day governance was in the hands of the institutions mentioned above, who represented the edah. It was the edah which God led directly and to which He spoke through the Eved Adonai. Within the limits of God's constitution the edah acted autonomously.13

Once the nation had been formed by Moses and settled in the land by Joshua, no single national leaders of this kind emerged until the very end of the first constitutional epoch. Instead, regional shofetim (judges) -- also charismatic leaders -- appeared from time to time, according to the biblical account at least one in each generation, to act as proto-national leaders, under God's direct sovereignty, primarily, though not exclusively, in the military realm. The term "judge," introduced in English Bibles as the translation to the Hebrew term, carries roughly the same meaning as the term originally did in Anglo-American political life, that is to say, an executive office whose duties may include the settling of disputes but are essentially directed toward the authoritative execution of the law, as in the case of the traditional county judge who actually serves as the chief executive officer of the county.14

If the terminology used in the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua is accurate, the use of the term "judges" to describe the post-Joshua leadership of the nation accurately reflects the less than nationwide scope of the judges' authority. The Ministers of the Lord had in their governmental structures judges and officers, lesser figures responsible to them whose authority may have been parallel to that of the later judges, though limited by the existence of a national leader. Only after their departure did the judges acquire a leading role of their own.

The first constitutional epoch came to an end with the advent of the monarchy, which was instituted with some reluctance to cope with the Philistine threat to the very existence of Israel. The epoch's last stage was dominated by Samuel, the last of the judges and the first of the prophets, who brought the period to a close with his efforts to revive national unity in the traditional manner through a single nationwide leader with limited authority primarily in the military field. His grant of such limited authority, to Saul, whom he designated as "governor" (nagid), represented an effort to restore the kind of national institutions needed to promote energetic national unity that had existed in the days of Moses and Joshua.15

For Samuel, the Israelite constitution demanded that energetic government be limited government under God's continuing sovereignty. He emphasized the idea of dividing authority between the governor (keter malkhut) and the prophet (keter Torah), with the former holding executive powers limited by the latter's mediation of God's word. Samuel failed for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that the successful implementation of such a political arrangement was not to occur for many centuries. In the end, he himself took the decisive steps necessary to create a more conventional monarchy, though one limited by the traditional constitution.

The establishment of the kingship opened a new constitutional epoch in Israelite history, one marked by the institutionalization of a limited monarchy and the struggle over the means to insure its limitation. David can be considered the first true king of Israel, with Saul a transitional figure who was really part of the older federal republican tradition. At the same time, the struggle between Samuel and Saul did set the stage for the character of the political struggle in the monarchic period. As Saul was endowed with increasingly monarchic powers, Samuel transformed his own role from that of judge to that of navi, or prophet, whose main task was to keep the monarch within the limits of the constitution in the largest. To that end, he introduced the mishpat hamelukhah (the law of the kingdom) as the framework for the limited kingship. This tension between king and prophet was to be the primary constitutional feature of the second constitutional epoch. During most of that period, the prophets functioned to direct and restrict kingly action and powers.16

David was the first to formally assume the mantle of kingship. Like Saul, he did so through a combination of divine designation (anointment by a prophet) and popular consent (covenants with the elders of Judah and Israel). He established most of the fundamental powers of the king during his long reign, including the power of hereditary succession within his "house." He did so by grafting the kingship and institutions designed to support it upon the governing base of the old tribal federation, preserving most of the institutions of the federation otherwise intact but increasingly subordinate to the king and court. David accomplished this by utilizing military necessity as the basis for creation of a ruling class and a standing army whose powers came from their military role rather than from traditional sources and who were consequently tied to the king first and foremost.

Brilliantly, he captured Jerusalem and made it his city, the functional equivalent of a federal district in our time, outside of the jurisdiction of any individual tribe, and then proceeded to build his court there. He further strengthened the keter malkhut by developing a royal bureaucracy and a small professional army. Through the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant and the designation of the Zadokites as the priestly guardians of the Ark, David both strengthened the keter kehunah and gained control over it. He showed similar wisdom in dealing with the keter Torah as represented by the prophets, encouraging the leading prophets to take up residence at his court by giving them free rein to criticize him without penalty, but by the same token subtly tying them to the king as their protector. In sum, rather than seek to exert control by destroying the traditional institutions of the Israelite polity, he co-opted them.

Solomon intensified this trend by transforming the ruling class from a military elite to a more complex military-bureaucratic-religious one, introducing bureaucratic administrative forms as vehicles for centralizing power in the country. Both did what they did, however, within the purview and under the gaze of prophetic counterparts who were able to maintain some constitutional limitations on the exercise of kingly power if not on the increase in its scope. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that the prophets were not initially opposed to the centralization of power under the first two Davidic monarchs, seeing the new centralization as a way to better implement God's law in the nation as a whole.17

However, when Rehoboam attempted to further extend and intensify the actions of his father and grandfather and impose burdens on the Israelite public that were not only taxing but visibly arbitrary as well, the major prophetic leadership deserted him and fostered a revolution which led to the division of the kingdom into two.18 While this division brought about an important regime change on one level, on another it did not mark a full constitutional revolution because even under David and Solomon the northern tribes and Judah (which had virtually absorbed the tribe of Simeon by that time) had been separate groupings that accepted the rule of David and his son in separate actions. The refusal of the northern tribes to accept Rehoboam, then, was an act fully consonant with the Israelite constitution as they understood it.

What the division did inaugurate was the development of two different ways of integrating the monarchy into the constitutional framework of Israel.19 In the southern kingdom, where the Davidic dynasty continued to rule, the tension between the kings and prophets was usually resolved in favor of the king, even to the point where specific monarchs temporarily suppressed the prophetic schools, though at no point was the tension eliminated. The maintenance of the dynastic principle insured this result in a way that was not possible in the northern kingdom, where the succession itself was founded upon an opposition to dynastic rule and a desire to restore the tradition of charismatic leadership.

In the north, the prophets were sufficiently strong to prevent the entrenchment of any particular dynasty and, indeed, the prophetic role became one of supporting or rejecting particular candidates for the kingship (by extending or refusing them God's charisma) and thereby encouraging dynastic changes. Consequently, kingship in the northern tribes meant, in no small degree, a restoration of the principles and practices of the tribal federation, with the kings far more limited in power than their southern counterparts and the older institutions of the tribal federation stronger in their governing role. At the same time, a national ruling elite did emerge that was tied to the monarchy, even if its composition changed with the dynastic changes that took place in the north.

The active role of the prophets is attested to in the biblical account which reveals far more prophetic activity in the northern kingdom than in the southern, whether the activity of such political leaders as Elijah or the more limited kind of protest prophecy of Amos and Hosea. It is characteristic of the situation that the leading prophet in this constitutional epoch to appear in the southern kingdom was Isaiah, a relative of the king and a member of the ruling elite, whose background stands in great contrast to that of Amos and Hosea, not to mention Elijah himself.20

With the destruction of the northern kingdom in 722 BCE, the second constitutional epoch came to an end and the third began. The southern kingdom stood alone as the single politically independent entity of the Jewish people and, indeed, extended its sway over part of the north and many of its people. It is fair to say that the real meaning of the destruction of the northern kingdom was not the dispersion of the people as recorded in the legends of the "ten lost tribes" so much as the destruction of the ten tribes as political entities.21 Subsequent Jewish tradition which sees the restoration of the tribes as a major element in the coming of the messianic age confirms this.22

The architects of the extended kingdom of Judah were King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah. Hezekiah was the most important king between Solomon and Josiah, principally because he had the opportunity to reunite the Jewish people and did so, reinstituting the Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem and extending Judean control over territories of the northern kingdom. In doing all this he was supported by Isaiah, who raised prophecy to a new level in Judah.23

Still, elimination of the northern kingdom had the consequence of greatly weakening the role of the prophets as defenders of the traditional constitution in the south, a tendency that was further strengthened by the elimination of the federal institutions that had survived in the north as additional constitutional bulwarks. In the south, where the tribes had already merged into the single polity of Judah, the old federal traditions were preserved only in the local arena. Consequently, the century between the destruction of the northern kingdom and the ascension of King Josiah was marked by the greatest violations of the traditional constitution ever to occur in the biblical period. These violations led to a major constitutional reform under Josiah, whereby the limitations on the monarchy which the prophets had tried to sustain were, in effect, brought together in the form of a more clearly written constitution (the Book of Deuteronomy) that successfully changed the power of relationships in the country, at least partly because the kingship itself ceased to be a reality shortly thereafter.24

The Josianic reform centered on the introduction of the Book of Deuteronomy as the basic constitutional document of a reconstituted and more limited kingship. The king was further limited by the loss of Israelite independence shortly after Josiah's death. The reduction of the Davidic ruler of vassal status in the Babylonian empire at the beginning of the sixth century BCE, led, ultimately, to the disappearance of the throne itself in a restored Judea early in the fifth century. By the end of the third constitutional epoch, the monarchy had disappeared as a viable institution, though hope for its restoration became part of Israel's messianic dream. The mysterious disturbances surrounding the last scion of the House of David in the period immediately following the restoration under Cyrus, marked the closing of the monarchic chapter in biblical history (and, except for the Hasmonean interlude, in Jewish history as a whole).25

The necessity to develop new modes of group survival in exile enhanced the importance of the Torah as written constitution as a source of authority in Israel. Consequently, in this third epoch, the Torah became the ascendant political authority in the Israelite polity, with the heirs of the prophets turning their attention to expounding its principles and elucidating its promises for future political success rather than being solely responsible for the maintenance of the constitution.

The removal of the last of the Davidides from the political scene ended the third constitutional epoch and led to the inauguration of a second historical period, known as the Second Commonwealth, and a fourth constitutional epoch, which brought with it the restoration of fully republican government. At the beginning of the epoch, the Jewish people was divided among three concentrations, the Persian province of Yahud, or Judea -- a small territory around Jerusalem in Eretz Israel; a major concentration in the Persian Empire from Mesopotamia eastward into Iran; and in Egypt's Nile Valley. Biblical history concentrates on the Judean community as the continuation of Jewish independence although, in fact, as the Bible itself indicates, Yahud was only an autonomous Persian province.26 While there are only a few sources on the subject, it appears that the Jewish communities in the diaspora also had substantial autonomy.27

Significantly, the biblical account of the inauguration of this fourth constitutional epoch features the promulgation by Ezra and Nehemiah of the Torah as Israel's constitution by popular demand in a special ceremony at which public consent to the Torah was reaffirmed. Thus the Bible presents the covenantal process as having come full circle. At Sinai, God initiated the covenant which, among other things, launched the first constitutional period in Jewish history. After three epochs, that period came to an end and a new period was inaugurated by the Jewish people in Jerusalem, initiating a renewal of the covenant with God.28

Characteristic of this fourth constitutional epoch was rule by the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, a council which shared power with the high priest and the soferim (scribes). Thus the separation of powers system inaugurated in the previous constitutional period was maintained. The Anshei Knesset HaGedolah represented the keter malkhut. The term knesset itself was a Hebrew adaptation of the Aramaic kenishtah, which means edah. The High Priest continued to represent the keter kehunah and the soferim inherited the mantle of the keter Torah. Indeed, the three ketarim become known as such during this epoch.29

What happened within this separation of powers system was a shift in power, with first the soferim and then the High Priest becoming the principal leaders of the people. While the biblical canon was not yet completed in this epoch, after the Bible recounts the history of the reconstitution under Ezra and Nehemiah, the period itself drops out of the Bible's purview except for the two accounts of events in the diaspora in the Scroll of Esther and the Book of Daniel.

Forms of Political Organization

By and large, our knowledge of the forms of Israelite political organization is limited. The Bible offers the only available account of the subject, although it can be supplemented by limited archaeological evidence and documents from other West Asian polities of the biblical era. We are assisted by the biblical discussion of political institutions in the context of its larger purposes and our increased understanding of the political institutions of the ancient Near East in general.

Three arenas of political organization are to be noted: local, tribal, and national, each of which underwent transformation through the various constitutional epochs. Local institutions had their origins in the familial structure developed before the first national constitution when the Israelites were semi-nomads. The various mishpahot (clans) formed by the combination of households (bet ab) formed the tribal substructure in those times. After Israelite settlement of Canaan during the first constitutional period, the clans settled down in discrete villages or townships (a more accurate term) and the relationship among those households was transformed into one that was linked with the particular locality of their settlement.

The clans were governed by elders (zekenim), no doubt consisting of the heads of their several households. After the conquest, these became local councils known as Shaarei Ha'ir (the Gates of the City), referring to the location within the Israelite township at which they met to conduct their business. These local councils seem to have persisted throughout the biblical period and, with some changes, into the post-biblical period as well. We must assume that these local councils handled whatever governmental functions were conducted locally, combining within them such legislative, executive, and judicial functions as were exercised at the various periods of their existence. It is possible that the judicial functions were shared with locally based priests from time to time. These local councils adjudicated disputes, regulated markets, spoke in the name of the township on local affairs and in conjunction with tribal and national bodies. While they were apparently selected by consensus, they were responsible to the township assembly, known in the Bible as yotzei ha-ir (those who go out from the city), consisting variously of all local inhabitants on constitutional matters or the military age males constituting the local militia on others.

Tribal political institutions also grew out of the familial structures of the presettlement period. During the first constitutional epoch, the tribes were entrusted with the major governmental responsibilities of the nation, with the linkages among them being essentially confederal. Tribal government was apparently vested in a council of elders representing the various families and clans within each tribe. Specific members of the council of elders or others co-opted for the purpose were given special responsibilities of an executive character, while policy-making and adjudicating functions remained in the hands of the tribal council. It is unclear whether tribes were led by nesi'im (singular, nasi, erroneously translated as "prince" in many English versions of the Bible, and actually meaning "he who is raised up" or selected to represent; a reasonable English equivalent is magistrate), or whether such nesi'im were simply selected to represent the tribes in national activities. During this first period, reference is also made to sarim (singular, sar or officer) and alufim (singular, aluf, leader of a thousand), both military titles used to describe commanders of tribal levies.

During this period, the tribes also took on a territorial basis so that in the course of a few generations, the very term shevet acquired strong territorial connotations. The land as divided into tribal segments was further subdivided into private and tribal parcels with cultivated lands passing into family ownership and pasture lands remaining the common property of the tribe.

During the second constitutional epoch, the governmental role of the tribes was substantially reduced as the role of national authorities was strengthened. In the southern kingdom, the virtual merger of the tribes led to the emergence of single council of elders which became, in effect, the popular organ of the state, which shared power with the king in ways not quite clear from the information we have on hand. In the northern kingdom, where central authority remained weak, the tribal councils apparently continued to function and exercise substantial control over tribal affairs. Constitutionally, their powers remained relatively uncircumscribed by the fact of kingship, though particular kings exercised great power over them by virtue of their power position in the kingdom as a whole. These tribal councils disappeared with the fall of the northern kingdom.30

The elimination of separate tribal governments with the fall of the northern kingdom ended the federal structure of the biblical polity, though it did not eliminate the use of federal principles in the organization of power in that polity. In the third constitutional epoch, tribal institutions as such were no longer in evidence though the tribal council survived as the popular body of the Kingdom of Judah, in the pattern which had already emerged during the previous constitutional epoch. The pattern was carried over into the fourth constitutional epoch when the council became the dominant political institution in the country as the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah.

The greatest changes in political forms in the biblical period took place on the national plane. These changes have already been described above. Examining them more directly, we find that in the first constitutional epoch national institutions were rudimentary, consisting primarily of leaders exercising authority nationwide or over several tribes with small entourages of assistants responsible to them plus councils and commissions constituted for particular purposes. A rudimentary corps of officials existed in the form of the shotrim, who were responsible for implementation of the decisions of the national leadership. In addition to the charismatic leaders, the High priest (and perhaps lesser priests in the period of the Judges) also exercised authority in certain fields, apparently sharing certain powers with the charismatic leadership particularly where certain impartiality among the tribes was required.

It is unclear as to whether there was a continuing national assembly during the first constitutional epoch or whether ad hoc assemblies of tribal elders functioned in lieu of such a body when the occasion arose. Beyond that, the biblical account portrays the constitution of special commissions for special purposes on the basis of one representative per tribe, such as the commission of the twelve spies to scout out Canaan prior to its conquest, the commission which carried the Ark of the Covenant across the Jordan when the invasion commenced, and the commission established to work with Joshua and Elazar, the High Priest, to allocate the land among the tribes after the conquest was completed. Smaller commissions, comprising representatives of more than two but less than the full number of tribes, appear to have functioned during the period of the judges to assist them from time to time. Thus, national government, in the first constitutional epoch, emphasized joint action on the part of the tribes for very limited purposes.

During the second constitutional epoch, separate, autonomous, and continuing national institutions emerged, centered around the king. The first of these were military and related to the development of a military command structure. This command structure gradually gained civil responsibilities as well and was strengthened by addition of strictly civil components based on the priesthood and non-Israelite elements.

During the reign of Solomon, a civil bureaucracy was created and the country was divided into administrative districts which were probably coordinated with the tribal governments over most of the country but in the south, at least, superseded them. While the thrust of this new national structure was primarily to undertake national executive and judicial functions in a political system where legislation in the modern sense was unknown, it essentially preempted the powers of authoritative decision making to itself in all matters which the king deemed to be of national importance except where he was constitutionally or politically restrained from doing so by effective local institutions or prophetic actions.

These national institutions reached the high point of their strength in the third constitutional epoch and then disappeared in the catastrophe that destroyed the First Commonwealth. Their reemergence in the fourth constitutional epoch was in a substantially different guise, since the kingship could no longer serve as their focal point. Apparently, the scribes staffed the reconstituted national administrative structure functioning within the boundaries of the Torah.

The Exercise of Political Functions

Very little is known about the exercise of political functions in the biblical period. Modern conceptions of limited or unlimited government are not easily applied to a period in which the role of the family was extraordinarily strong in fields later to become governmental responsibilities, and the connections between the political and the cultic aspects of life were inseparable. It is clear that Israelite government was not intended to be one that penetrated into all aspects of life. At the same time, the notion of government limited to the exercise of political powers also would have been foreign to the ancient Israelites. Political and cultic authority were so intertwined as to be inseparable even for analytic purposes. The community felt free to regulate the economy in numerous ways and the state undertook economic development tasks, but government-sponsored social services were essentially nonexistent.31

Israelite government pursued a limited but active role in the affairs of society, a role whose level depended upon the needs of the time. It is very likely that local authorities exercised some control over local economic conditions, if only to regulate competition. By the same token, after the rise of the kingship and the development of the commercial dimension of Israel's economy, the national government pursued clearly mercantilistic policies designed to promote commerce through joint governmental-private ventures which tended to favor the ruling elite.32 It was during this period that the national government took responsibility for providing a proper infrastructure in the way of roads and security protection for the fostering of commerce. In the domain of religion, it seems that there was general agreement that government had a responsibility to foster proper observance of cultic forms. This was true regardless of whether the cultic forms were those of Israel's God or foreign gods, with the struggle being between parties that wished to direct government effort one way or another.

While the Bible makes provision for public activity in the realm of education and the social services, there is no particular indication that this public activity must be governmental in any way, and it is unclear as to whether there were any governmental roles played in this realm.33

Even less is known about the way in which political interests were articulated and aggregated in the biblical period. Was there voting? What does that Bible mean when it says the entire people would gather together to affirm or ratify particular decisions? How were elders chosen? How did one enter the ruling elite in the second and third constitutional epochs? These are questions which remain substantially unanswered.

The Bible does describe various covenant affirmation ceremonies in which the people or its representatives would reaffirm a covenantal relationship with God and a particular constitution or leader. These invariably occurred at points of constitutional crisis where it could not be assumed that a popular consensus persisted from the previous period. These covenantal acts are politically intriguing but their descriptions in the biblical accounts are not very revealing politically, so that we can only speculate regarding their relationship to the larger political system and processes of ancient Israel.

Fundamental Principles of Government and Politics

It may fairly be said that the fundamental principles animating government and politics in ancient Israel were theocratic, federal, and republican. The theocratic principle underlies all of Israel's political institutions. God is conceived to be directly involved in the governance of Adat Bnai Yisrael. During the first constitutional epoch, He is accepted as the great governor of the nation. Under the two constitutional periods in which the kingship existed, He was conceived to have, in effect, delegated that direct role to kings and, finally, in the fourth constitutional epoch, He was viewed as having resumed that role, though in ways which were at once better institutionalized and more obscure than in the first period.

This theocratic principle had two immediate consequences in shaping the Israelite conception of politics. In the first place, politics or the governance of the state was not an end in itself in the Israelite scheme of things, but rather a useful way of serving divine purposes. This meant that the state did not exist as an end in itself. Indeed, Israelite political thought does not conceive of the state as a reified entity. There was no Israelite equivalent of the Greek polis, that is to say, the city whose value as a political entity exists independently of its inhabitants. There is no generic term for state in the Bible, only terms for different regimes with kahal or mamlakhah coming closest to being used generically. Medinah, the contemporary Hebrew term, is used in Scripture to describe territories with juridical status and a measure of autonomy but without political independence. Even Adat Bnai Yisrael, important as it was in the fulfillment of God's plan, was conceived to be a king of partnership of Israelites and not an entity that existed independently of its people. Political institutions were viewed not as serving the state but as serving this partnership which united the people with each other through their common linkage with God.

At the same time, politics was important because the establishment of the Holy Commonwealth, later to be called God's Kingdom of Earth in some quarters, was a primary goal of the Israelite nation, a goal mandated by God. Thus the character of Israelite political institutions was constantly judged in the Bible in terms of their success in fostering the development of the Holy Commonwealth. The very institution of the kingship became an issue because it involved the abandonment of God's direct rule over the people and thus was viewed by many as a departure from the path leading toward the Holy Commonwealth. Subsequent to the introduction of kingly rule, particular dynasties were judged in terms of their faithfulness to God's will in this connection. Thus the disappearance of the ten tribes as political entities is lamented as a break in the right order of things that must be mended if the Holy Commonwealth is to be achieved.

The biblical concern with political matters is so pervasive within its moral framework that references to such matters can be found in virtually every book and range from discussion of the origins of imperialism to the nature of statesmanship, aside from its major concern with the government of Israel. Thus, biblical thought is, on one hand, highly political and, on the other, very clear in its subordination of the political to higher goals. Political relationships in ancient Israel were based on the covenant or federal principle (the word federal is derived from the Latin foedus which means covenant). In fact, the Bible portrays the covenant principle as the basis for the relationships between God and man, between the nation of Israel and God and among humans. Covenants in biblical thought are the means through which lasting relationships are forged, designed to preserve the respective integrities of the partners and to provide a basis for cooperation among them in order to achieve the common ends delineated in the compact. Thus the basis of all of Israelite society was federal down to its roots.

The first covenant between God and Israel according to the biblical account, the covenant with Abraham, is proto-political in character, involving as it does two promises -- the establishment of the Jewish people and the allocation to them of the land of Canaan. The covenant at Sinai was the first great political covenant. It created the federal relationship between God and the Israelites. By doing so, it also constituted the Israelites as a nation, that is to say, as something more than a family or descendants of a putative common ancestor.

The Bible clearly relates the formation of the political institutions of Israel to the Sinai experience, whether in the form of the Book of the Covenant which is the basis of the first constitution of the Israelite federation or in connection with Moses' following the advice of his father-in-law to establish a national administrative and judicial structure, which is presented as taking place at the same time, though without the same divine character attached to it. The Bible is quite clear in indicating that no particular form of government is mandated by God, though some forms receive divine sanction and others do not.

The theopolitical aspects of this great covenant were reaffirmed at subsequent points in the history of the Israelites, invariably as times when constitutional change had taken place. Thus, the reaffirmation of the covenant under Joshua marked the point where the political institutions of Israel had to be adapted to permanent settlement in Eretz Israel. Similarly, David was made king by covenant, indeed, by two separate covenants, one with the elders of Judah and the second with the elders of Judah and Israel. Covenant ceremonies were held at various times during the history of the kingship when the institution itself was in jeopardy. Finally, the institution of the Josianic reforms and the Deuteronomic constitution involved a major covenant renewal ceremony. The initiation of the fourth constitutional epoch involved another major covenant renewal ceremony with Ezra reading the Torah before the community at Sukkot to obtain their consent to it in the approved constitutional manner.

The covenant not only forms the basis for political organization in Israel but does even more than that. Israel becomes in effect, a partnership held together by covenantal or federal ties which link the people to each other through their tribes and, through their tribes, also link them to God. These federal principles became so ingrained in Israelite political thought that, ever since, Jewish communities have been conceived as partnerships and have been organized through articles of agreement that are in themselves small covenants.

At first, these federal principles were translated into a federal system of government. Even when the Israelites abandoned the tribal confederacy as a form of government, they were careful to retain federal structural elements under the king and would have continued to do so by all accounts except for the conquest of the northern kingdom. Although this federal structure disappeared at the end of the second constitutional epoch because of objective conditions rather than for any internal reasons, the federal principles remained to animate the formally unitary structure that replaced it. At the same time, the federal structure of the earlier age was enshrined in the prophetic literature as a messianic goal. The various biblical descriptions of the ideal commonwealth all emphasize the federal structure as a major element within it.34

Republicanism is the third political principle of biblical Israel. Understood in its broadest sense, republicanism reflects the view that the political order is a public thing (res publica), that is to say, not the private preserve of any single king or ruling elite but the property of all of its citizens and that political power should be organized so as to reflect this fact. Republican government involves a limitation on the powers of those given authority and some provision for the representation of public concerns as a matter of right in the formulation and execution of public policy. All these conditions prevailed in biblical Israel except during periods when individual kings essentially usurped powers and were considered to be usurpers by the biblical account.

So republican was ancient Israel that even the institution of kingship, limited as it was, persisted for less than half of the biblical period (the precise length of time depending upon the way in which the biblical period is calculated). The Bible does not mandate kingship but makes its institution a matter of public choice and, in any case, clearly provides for constitutional limitations on the king, who is never the sovereign. The prophets, indeed, refrained from referring to kings as kings (melakhim), but rather referred to them as negidim, roughly translated as high commissioners; in other words, God's commissioners to lead His people or, in the case of Ezekiel, as nesi'im, God's elected ones.35 This is a reflection of an antimonarchical tradition that persisted among the prophetic schools during the entire period of the kings, leading in the end to something of a dualism in Jewish political thought whereby the traditional role of Elijah became associated with a kind of prophetic republicanism, with or without a king as a national leader of a limited scope in the messianic age.36

Similarly, it seems that certain republican institutions were preserved through the period of kingship and emerged as more powerful institutions once that period had come to an end. These institutions embodies principles of shared power that were never relinquished.

Out of these three principles there emerges a picture of the ideal commonwealth as embodied in biblical political thought. Two principal descriptions of this ideal commonwealth have been canonized, with a third description that emphasizes political structure and organization less while portraying the kind of life and society that the commonwealth will create. The two descriptions are to be found in the Book of Joshua and in the prophecies of Ezekiel.

The Book of Joshua, an idealized version of the conquest and settlement of Canaan by the Israelites, can properly be viewed as an expression of what the ideal Israelite polity should be, describing as it does in some detail what the polity was conceived to have been at the time of Joshua, that is to say, at the time of its greatest achievements in Canaan. If this biblical utopia looks to a great past situation for its inspiration, Ezekiel's utopia looks to a great future situation; yet, the description that emerges is quite similar to that found in the Book of Joshua. Finally, Isaiah's messianic vision implicitly assumes conditions such as those described in Joshua and Ezekiel.37

Characteristic of these utopian accounts is the three principles described above and the separation of the three ketarim. In all three, the theocratic principle is fundamental. Politics becomes a means for achieving and maintaining the Holy Commonwealth. God is sovereign and exercises His sovereignty more or less directly, mediated only through His servants who act as national leaders and the traditional institutions of the people. Those institutions are federal and republican in character, with the federation of tribes at their base and the popular institutions growing out of that federation the major instrumentalities of governance alongside of God, His chief minister, and supporting staff.

This ideal biblical commonwealth, reflected in the idealization of the realities of political life in ancient Israel, became a major force in the political thought of the Western world, shaping the ideals and animating the visions of most Western thrusts toward republicanism. Echoes and expansion of that vision permeated Western political thought after the rise of Christianity, just as they continued to permeate Jewish political thought after the Bible itself was canonized and the biblical period came to its conclusion.

Notes

1. See, for example, Robert Gordis, "Democratic Origins in Ancient Israel -- The Biblical Edah," in The Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York, 1967); Martin Noth, The History of Israel (New York: Harper and Row, 1958); G.E. Mendenhall, "Ancient Oriental and Biblical Law," Biblical Archeologist 17 (2) (1954), pp. 26-46; C. Umhau Wolf, "Terminology of Israel's Tribal Organization," Journal of Biblical Literature 65 (1946); Norman Gottwald, All the Kingdoms of the Earth (New York: Harper and Row, 1964); N.H. Snaith, "The Covenant-Love of God," in The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (New York, 1964), pp. 94-127.

2. For an overview of the contribution of the Israelite experience in the development of Western political institutions, see, inter alia, G.H. Dodge, The Political Theory of the Huguenots of the Dispersion (New York, 1947); Harold Fisch, Jerusalem and Albion (New York: Schocken, 1964); Christopher Hill, Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (Oxford, 1965); Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism (New York: Macmillan, 1961); Zacharas P. Thundyil, Covenant in Anglo-Saxon Thought (Madras: Macmillan of India, 1972); Eric Voegelin, Israel and Revelation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957); Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985) and The Revolution of the Saints (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).

3. Johannes Althusius, Politics, trans. Frederick Carney (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), p. 143; Benedict Spinoza, Political-Theological Tractate (Italian translation by C. Sarchi, 1875 [1670]); John Locke, First and Second Treatises on Government, ed. Peter Laslett (New York: Mentor, 1965); Daniel J. Elazar and John Kincaid, eds., The Covenant Connection (Grenshaw: Carolina Academic Press, 1990).

4. See Daniel J. Elazar, "Kinship and Consent in the Jewish Community: Patterns of Continuity in Jewish Communal Life," Tradition, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Fall 1974), pp. 63-79; "Covenant as the Basis of the Jewish Political Tradition," in Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and its Contemporary Uses, Daniel J. Elazar, ed. (Ramat Gan: Turtledove, 1981); and Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, The Jewish Polity: Jewish Political Organizations from Biblical Times to the Present (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).

5. See, for example, Albrecht Alt, Essays on Old Testament and Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 173-222; H. Tadmor, "'The People and the Kingship in Ancient Israel: The Role of Political Institutions in the Biblical Period," Journal of World History 11 (1968), pp. 46-68; Martin Noth, History of Israel; W.F. Albright, "Tribal Rule and Charismatic Leaders," in The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York, 1968), pp. 35-52; Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Biblical Account of the Conquest of Palestine (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1953) and The Book of Joshua: A Commentary (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1963).

6. Daniel J. Elazar, The Constitutional Periodization of Jewish History (Jerusalem: Center for Jewish Community Studies, 1980) and the files of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem.

7. Elazar and Cohen, The Jewish Polity, Introduction and Epochs I-IV.

8. On the epoch of the patriarchs, see A. Malamat, "Origins and the Formative Period," in H.H. Ben Sasson, ed., A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 3-87; B. Mazar, ed., "The Patriarchs," The World History of the Jewish People, Vol. I (New Brunswick, 1970); E.A. Speiser, ed., "Genesis," The Anchor Bible, Vol. 1: Social Institutions (New York, 1965), pp. 3-15.

9. John Bright, A History of Israel, 3rd. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982); G.E. Mendenhall, "Ancient Oriental and Biblical Law," Biblical Archeologist 17:2 (1954), pp. 26-46; M. Weinfeld, "Berit - Covenant vs. Obligation," Biblica 56:i (1975), pp. 109-128.

10. Aaron Wildavsky, The Nursing Father: Moses as a Political Leader (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984); Leo Schwarz, Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), ch. 1; John Bright, "The Constitution and Faith of Early Israel," A History of Israel, Part II, Ch. 4; Moshe Weinfeld, "The Transition from Tribal Rule to Monarchy and Its Impact on History," Kinship and Consent; A. Malamat, "Origins and the Formative Period"; Daniel J. Elazar, "The Book of Joshua as a Political Classic," Jewish Political Studies Review I:1-2 (Spring 1989), pp. 93-150; Martin Noth, "Israel as the Confederation of the Twelve Tribes," Part I in The History of Israel; W.F. Albright, "Tribal Rule and Charismatic Leaders," The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York, 1968), pp. 35-52; R.G. Bowling and G. Ernest Wright, eds., "Joshua," The Anchor Bible, Vol. 5 (New York, 1982); G.E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (The Biblical Colloquium, 1955); Studies in the Book of Joshua (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1960).

11. M. Weinfeld, "Judge and Officer in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East," Israel Oriental Studies 7 (1977), pp. 65-88; "Keter ve-Atarah," in Encyclopedia Mikra'it, Vol. 4 (Jerusalem, 1962), clmns. 405-408; Stuart A. Cohen, The Concept of the Three Ketarim: Its Place in Jewish Political Thought and Its Implications for a Study of Jewish Constitutional History, Working Paper No. 18 (Jerusalem: Center for Jewish Communty Studies, 1982), pp. 1-40, and "Keter as a Jewish Political Symbol: Origins and Implications," in Jewish Political Studies Review, I:1-2 (Spring, 1989); C. Umhau Wolf, "Terminology of Israel's Tribal Organization," Journal of Biblical Literature.

12. E.A. Speiser, "Background and Functions of the Biblical Nasi," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 25 (1965), pp. 111-117; M. Weinfeld, "Judge and Officer...".

13. Moshe Weinfeld, "From God's Edah to the Chosen Dynasty"; R. Gordis, "Democratic Origins in Ancient Israel - The Biblical Edah," in The Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume.

14. B. Lindars, "Gideon and the Kinship," Journal of Theological Studies 16 (1965), pp. 315-326; R.G. Bowling and G. Ernest Wright, "Judges," The Anchor Bible, Vol. 6 (New York, 1980); W.F. Albright, "Tribal Rule and Charismatic Leaders," The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra and Samuel and the Beginnings of the Prophetic Movement in Israel (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1961).

15. A. Alt, "The Formation of the Israelite State," in Essays on Old Testament History and Religion (New York, 1966); Daniel J. Elazar, "Dealing with Fundamental Regime Change: The Biblical Paradigm of the Transition from Tribal Federation to Federal Monarchy of David," in Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Nahum M. Sarna, eds. From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), Vol. I, pp. 97-129; Moshe Weinfeld, "From God's Edah to the Chosen Dynasty: The Transition from the Tribal Federation to the Monarchy," in Kinship and Consent, pp. 151-166; J. Levenson, "The Davidic Covenant and Its Modern Interpreters," Catholic Bible Quarterly 41 (ii) (1979); W.A. Irwin, "Saul and the Rise of the Monarchy," American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature 58 (1941), pp. 113-138.

16. Benjamin Offenheimer, Early Prophecy in Israel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1973); J. Muilenberg, "The 'Office' of the Prophet in Ancient Israel," in J.P. Hyatt, ed. The Bible in Modern Scholarship (1966), pp. 79-97; M. Galston, "Philosopher-King vs. Prophet," in Israel Oriental Studies 8 (1978), pp. 204-218; Roland de Vaux, Jerusalem and the Prophets (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1965); S. Talmon, "Kingship and Ideology of the State," in The World History of the Jewish People, Vol. 4, Part II (Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 3-26.

17. A. Alt, "The Monarchy in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah," in Essays on Old Testament History and Religion (1951), English translation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell and Mott, 1966), pp. 239-259; A. Malamat, "Organs of Statecraft in the Israelite Monarchy," Biblical Archeologist 28 (2) (1956), pp. 34-50; Roland de Vaux, "The Administration of the Kingdom," in Ancient Israel (New York, 1965), Vol. 1, pp. 133-142; B. Halpern, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel (Cambridge: Harvard Semitic Monographs, 1981), No. 25; Y. Kaufman, "The Monarchy," The Religion of Israel (Chicago, 1960), pp. 262-270.

18. B. Halpern, Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel; W.O.E. Oesterley and Theodore Henry Robinson, History of Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932).

19. Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, "Epoch IV: Brit ha-Melukhah (The Federal Monarchy)," in The Jewish Polity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).

20. Norman K. Gottwald, All the Kingdoms of the Earth (New York: Harper and Row, 1964).

21. Bright, A History of Israel, Ch. 7, pp. 249-287; Albright, "Tribal Rule and Charismatic Leaders," The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra, Chapter 7, pp. 67-74; Noth, The History of Israel, Part III, Section I, pp. 253-299; Oesterley and Robinson, History of Israel.

22. Martin Cohen, "The Role of the Shilonite Priesthood in the United Monarchy of Ancient Israel," Hebrew Union College Annual Vol. 36 (Cinninnati: Hebrew Union College, 1965), pp. 59-98; B. Porten, Archives from the Jews of Elephantine (Berkeley, 1968).

23. John Bright, "The Monarchy: Crisis and Downfall," in A History of Israel.

24. E.W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell and Mott, 1967); G. von Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy, English translation (London: SCM Press, 1953); H.H. Rowley, "The Early Prophecies of Jeremiah in their Setting," reprinted in Men of God (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963), pp. 133-168; Oesterley and Robinson, History of Israel.

25. John Bright, "Tragedy and Beyond: The Exilic and Postexilic Periods," in, The History of Israel pp. 76-94; Leo Schwarz, Great Ages and Ideas, pp. 341-401.

26. L. Falk, "The Temple Scroll and the Codification of Jewish Law," Jewish Law Annual 2 (1979), pp. 33-44; Leo Schwarz, Great Ages and Ideas; Elazar and Cohen, The Jewish Polity, Epoch VI; S. Zeitlin, The Rise and Fall of the Judean State, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1962).

27. Ibid.

28. E. Bickerman, From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees (New York, 1962); J. Bright, "The Formative Period of Judaism," in A History of Israel; M. Snaith, "Nehemiah," in Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament (New York, 1971), pp. 126-147.

29. See Elazar and Cohen, The Jewish Polity, Epoch VI.

30. J. Bright, "The Monarchy: Crisis and Downfall," in A History of Israel.

31. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965), 2 vols.

32. J. Bright, "Israel Under the Monarchy: The Period of Self-determination," in A History of Israel.

33. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, especially Vol. 1, Social Institutions.

34. Daniel J. Elazar, The Covenant Tradition in Politics, Vol. I (forthcoming).

35. Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20. A new translation with introduction and commentary (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983); Moshe Greenberg, "Ezekiel -- XV," The Anchor Bible v. 22, pp. 388; Moshe Greenberg and Charles Cutler Torrey, Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Original Prophecy (New York: Ktav, 1970); Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel from its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, translated and abridged by Moshe Greenberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 426-446.

36. Martin Cohen, op. cit.; William Lee Holladay, Isaiah, Scroll of a Prophetic Heritage (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eermans, 1978); Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel from its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, Part III, Ch. 12, pp. 378-394 for Isaiah and Part III, Ch. 13, pp. 426-446 for Ezekiel; Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper, 1948), Part IV, "The Latter Prophets," I, The Book of Isaiah, pp. 415-481; Gil, III, pp. 518-565.

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