Steph's+Essay

__The Rise of the Hebrews/Israelites Essay__

The Israelites started of as just a nomadic tribe trying to find their promised land. They struggled to be successful as a civilization at the beginning. At the beginning they had to leave Canaan and go to Egypt to prevent dying of starvation. Later they came back and struggled to get their land back from the Phillistines. Finally, David came to power over the Israelites and got rid of the Phillistines for good, which they had trouble doing before his time. The one thing they did the same in all the situations was they were separated into different groups with different leaders. Knowing this we can learn that a civilization with multiple leaders isn't a good one.

Having multiple patriarchs didn't help during the famine. At the time they were a civilization of 12 tribes ruled by Jacob's, the previous patriarch, twelve sons. They were settled in Canaan during the famine that was so bad that they had to sell one of the tribes' patriarchs into slavery to stay alive ([] ). I think this situation would have turned out better if they weren't separated into groups. If they were one big group they would be more willing to split the food evenly than if they were split up. This is because the groups are more distanced from others and therefore don't care about the others' food supply. Eventually they had no choice but to go to Egypt to save themselves ([] ). This shows the disfunction of having multiple leaders.

Being divided into 12 different tribes didn't help during the battles with the Phillistines. They got back from Egypt to their promised land and find that it is inhabited with different groups of people ([] ). The group they had problems getting rid of was the Phillistines. They finally got their land back when Saul became King of Israel. This only happened because the Israelites came together and fought instead of trying to take them on in smaller groups. That highlights a big problem with being a divided civilization

In Saul's reign, the kingdom eventually divided and wasn't very stable. The Israelites had their land but still had to continually fight the Philistines. Saul's men had also lost to them on Mount Giboa ([] ). When things looked dire, the Israelites turned to the leader of Judah. David, king of Judah at the time, became king of both the north and the south and also brought a cease to the battles with the philistines. If they hadn't united as one kingdom, the Philistines could have easily taken their land again. But after David's reign as king of Israel, the civilization became very powerful. This reminds society today how powerful one united kingdom is.

The Israelites came close to falling many times just at the beginning of their civilization. It was always for the same reason which was the division of the society. We learn from this that it is usually best in any society to stick together then to separate into groups. When a society is split up, it allows other groups to have an advantage over the people and could potentially lead to the fall of the civilization which is knowledge that is very useful today. The Israelites show us we must work together for the good of the people.

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