History of the Hebrews

Origin of the term:

It is believed that the term Hebrew comes from the name of Shem’s great
grandson, Eber. Genesis 10:21 defines Shem as « the father of all the children
of Eber”, in other words the father of the Hebrews, those who carry the
legacy of the priesthood of the Lord. Eber was the father of Peleg and the
ancestor of Abraham. Eber died at the age of 464 (Genesis 11:14-17)
when Jacob was 20.

In Hebrew, the name « Eber » comes from the root-verb ‫(חבר‬habar), meaning
to join, bind, unite.

Note: In Muslim tradition, Eber is considered as a holy forefather of

all Semitic peoples, including the Hebrews and the Arabs.
The history of Hebrews (as we know it) starts in Ur with the birth of Abraham. Abraham is
told by God to leave is native land of Ur. He takes with him is wife (Sarai), his father (Terah),
and his Nephew (Lot – the son of his brother Haran who had died in his native city, Ur). He
then departed for Canaan, but settled in a place named Haran, where Terah died at the age of
205.

Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and the
substance and souls that they had acquired, and traveled to Shechem in Canaan.

There was a severe famine in the land of Canaan, so that Abram and Lot and their households,
traveled south to Egypt. On the way Abram told his wife Sarai to say that she was his sister, so
that the Egyptians would not kill him.[Genesis 12:10–13] When they entered Egypt, the Pharaoh's
officials praised Sarai's beauty to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace, and Abram was
given provisions: "oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she-asses, and
camels". However, God afflicted Pharaoh and his household with great plagues, for which he
tried to find the reason.[Genesis 12:14–17] Upon discovering that Sarai was a married woman,
Pharaoh demanded that they and their household leave immediately, with all their goods.
Abram finally goes back to Bethel where he separates from Lot who goes to the plain of
Jordan, toward Sodom, while Abram and his family go south to Hebron. When Abram
was 90, he received a new name from God: "Abraham" – "a father of many
nations".[Genesis 17:5] Abraham then received the instructions for the covenant, of
which circumcision was to be the sign.[Genesis 17:10–14] Sarai also receives a new name:
“Sarah” (“princess”, “noble woman”).

Sarah and Abraham had a son, Isaac, who was the father of Jacob (renamed « Israel »).
Jacob/Israel was the father of 12 sons who became the tribes of Israel.
Jacob and his sons are forced by famine to go down into Egypt. Joseph was already there, as he had
been sold into slavery while young. When they arrive they and their families are 70 in number, but
within four generations they have increased to 600,000 men of fighting age, and the Pharaoh of Egypt,
alarmed, first enslaves them and then orders the death of all male Hebrew children. A woman from the
tribe of Levi hides her child, places him in a woven basket, and sends him down the Nile river. He is
named Mosheh, or Moses, by the Egyptians who find him. Being a Hebrew baby, they award a Hebrew
woman the task of raising him, the mother of Moses volunteers, and the child and his mother are
reunited.

At the age of forty Moses kills an Egyptian, after he sees him beating a Hebrew to death, and escapes
as a fugitive into the Sinai desert, where he is taken in by the Midianites and marries Zipporah, the
daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro. When he is eighty years old, Moses is tending a herd of sheep
in solitude on Mount Sinai when he sees a desert shrub that is burning but is not consumed. The God of
Israel calls to Moses from the fire and reveals his name, Yahweh (from the Hebrew root word 'HWH'
meaning to exist), and tells Moses that he is being sent to Pharaoh to bring the people of Israel out of
Egypt.

Moses and the Israelites (or Hebrews) flee into the desert where Moses receives the ten commandments
on Mount Sinai as well as instructions to build the « Tabernacle ». Because of their disobedience, the
Israelites wander for 40 years in the desert before they can enter the promise land.
Forty years after the Exodus, following the death
of the generation of Moses, a new generation, led
by Joshua, enters Canaan and takes possession of
the land in accordance with the promise made to
Abraham by Yahweh. Land is allocated to the
tribes by lottery.

At first, the Israelites were ruled by judges, but

they eventually ask to have a king (like the other
nations.) The prophet Samuel disagrees, but God
asks him to grant them what they want. Three
kings then rule a more centrally organized
kingdom of Israel: Saul, David and Solomon.

When Solomon died in 931 BCE, Israel split into

two separate kingdoms : the northern kingdom
known as Israel and the southern kingdom known
as Judah.
Israel’s kings ruled badly, the people behaved
badly, and God allowed the Assyrians to
conquer and carry them off to the north in 721
BCE. The tribes that the Assyrians carried off
are now commonly referred to as the Ten Lost
Tribes, since history has heard no more of
them.
The kingdom of Judah fared a little
better and actually had periods of
relative righteousness. But eventually
Judah also declined into
unrighteousness and were carried off.
In 587 BCE, the Babylonians
destroyed Jerusalem and its temple,
the temple of Solomon, and took the
Jews (the name by which the people
of the kingdom of Judah were known
as) to Babylonia in southern
Mesopotamia. There they stayed until
the Persians conquered Babylonia
and allowed the Jews to return to
Palestine in 537 BCE.
Upon their return, the Jews built a new temple, the Second Temple, finishing in 515 BCE and
tried to reestablish themselves as an independent nation in the Promised Land. Unfortunately
for them, over the next 600 years, the Jews were typically controlled by other groups. First,
the Persians maintained sovereignty, then the Greeks. Next, over a period of 170 years, the
Seleucids, based in Syria, and the Ptolemies, based in Egypt, fought each other for control of
Judah.

Finally, the Jews threw off the rule of the Seleucids and succeeded in establishing and
maintaining their independence from 164 to 63 BCE (the Maccabees led a revolt and
established a new dynasty: the Hasmonean dynasty). But, alas, in 63 BCE, the Romans took
control of the Promised Land; rebellion against them would cost the Jews their land a century
and a half later.

By the time Jesus of Nazareth was born during the rule of Augustus Caesar (reigned 27 BCE
to 14 CE), Judaism had developed several different types of Jewish religious groups,
including the Herodians, Zealots, Essenes, Sadducees, and Pharisees. The two most
prominent were the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
The Sadducees formed the Jewish aristocracy. Though quite small in numbers, they were a
powerful group because they controlled and administered the temple. They did not believe in
angels, spirits, or the resurrection.

The Pharisees were separatists. They prided themselves on their strict observance of the law
and on the care with which they avoided contact with things gentile. They believed in the
resurrection, angels and spirits. Jesus often condemned them for their tendency to reduce
religion to the mere observance of ceremonial rules.

In AD 70, the Romans put down the first of three Jewish rebellions. They destroyed the
temple in Jerusalem, killed a million Jews and sold almost 100,000 more into slavery. With
the temple gone, the Sadducees had little reason to exist and dwindled away as a religious
sect. The Roman destruction also caused the demise of the Essenes, Herodians, and Zealots.
Only the Pharisees remained after the destruction of the temple. Modern Judaism is
thus descended mostly from that version of Judaism.
Depiction of the Roman triumph celebrating the Sack of Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus in Rome. The procession features
the Menorah and other vessels taken from the Second Temple.
The Colosseum of Rome – Built 70-80 AD
When the Jews rebelled again in 132 CE, the Romans ruthlessly squelched the uprising.
They destroyed Jerusalem in 135 CE and sent some Jews into exile. Some Jewish
survivors of this destruction fled and established communities all over the
Mediterranean basin and beyond in what is known as the Diaspora, meaning
dispersion. Others stayed in Palestine and probably ended up converting to Islam when
their region was conquered by the Arabs (in the 7th century). (cf. Shlomo Sand, The
invention of the Jewish People)
The diaspora of the house of Israel happened throughout all their history.

- The Assyrian Exile of the Kingdom of Israel

- The Babylonian exile of the Kingdom of Judah (the great majority of the Jews never went
back to Jerusalem)
- Before the middle of the first century CE, in addition to Judea, Syria and Babylonia, large
Jewish communities existed in the Roman provinces of Egypt, Cyrene and Crete and in
Rome itself; after the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, when the Hasmonean kingdom became
a protectorate of Rome, emigration intensified. For example: by the time the Romans were
ruling Judea, the Jewish community of Alexandria in Egypt was bigger than the Jewish
community of Jerusalem.
- When the Romans squelched the Jewish rebellion and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in
70 AD, Jewish leaders and elite were exiled from the land, killed, or taken to Rome as slaves.
(As already mentioned, the other Jews just stayed in Judea)
- During the Middle Ages, due to increasing geographical dispersion and re-settlement, Jews
divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two
primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and
the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East.
It is important to note that entire peoples converted to judaism sometime in history: under
the Hasmonean dynasty (under force), during the Khazar empire (8th century)…etc.
Indeed, for a long time, Judaism was a proselyting religion.

So who is the house of Israel today? Are the Jews the only representative of the House of
Israel? Are they really the descendants of Judah as their name seems to claim?
 Who are the Jews? Who are the Gentiles?
Bruce R. McConkie (Quorum of the Twelve)

The term Jew is a contraction of the name Judah, but the Jews are not the members of the tribe of Judah as such. After the
reign of Solomon, the Lord's people divided into the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. Nearly ten tribes served
Jeroboam in Israel and two and a half tribes served Rehoboam in Judah. The Levites were scattered among all the tribes.
Judah, Simeon, and part of Benjamin comprised the kingdom of Judah. In actual fact, and considering blood lineage only,
both kingdoms had in them people from all of the tribes. Lehi, who lived in Judah and was a Jew, was of the tribe of
Manasseh. The Jews were nationals of the kingdom of Judah without reference to tribal ancestry. Thus the descendants of
Lehi, both the Nephites and the Lamanites, were Jews because they came out from Jerusalem and from the kingdom of
Judah. (2 Ne. 33:8.)

The Jews today are also those whose origins stem back to the kingdom of their fathers. Clearly the dominant tribe—
dominant, however, only in the sense of political power and rulership—was Judah. As to the bloodlines, who knows
whether there are more of Judah or of Simeon or of Benjamin or of some other tribe among the Jews as we know them?
Paul, a Jew, was of the tribe of Benjamin. The name Judea, now used as a noun, is actually an adjective meaning Jewish and
is the Greek and Roman designation for the land of Judah.

Since the Ten Tribes were taken into Assyria and lost from the knowledge of their fellows more than a century before the
Jews went into Babylonian captivity, the prophets began to speak of Jews and Gentiles and to consider as a Gentile
everyone who was not a Jew [from the kingdom of Judah]. This classifies Ephraim and the rest of scattered Israel as
Gentiles. Everyone, in this sense, who is not a Jew is a Gentile, a concept that will enable us, in due course, to set forth what
is meant by the fulness of the Gentiles. (The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man, p.221-222)
Definition of “Gentiles” by Bruce R. McConkie

“Israelites are called Gentiles in those scriptures which speak of the gospel going
first to the Gentiles and then to the Jews in the last days. Thus the Book of
Mormon came forth by way of the Gentile; Joseph Smith was the Gentile who
brought it forth; and the United States is a Gentile nation. This is an instance of
all men being divided into two categories--Jews and Gentiles, with the Jews
being those who are descendants of the Kingdom of Judah. This categorizes the
Lost Tribes of Israel as Gentiles, though, in fact, they are of the literal blood of
Israel. Joseph Smith was of Ephraim, and the so-called Gentiles who are
receiving the gospel in this day, before it goes to the Jews in full measure, are of
the house of Israel.”

(Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 518)

The question of who is the tribe of Judah is important when discussing the topic of the
gathering of Judah in Jerusalem/Palestine. Is the current Zionist movement a fulfillment of
this promise and prophecy?

Bruce Mcconkie:
“Judah will gather to old Jerusalem in due course; of this, there is no doubt. But this
gathering will consist of accepting Christ, joining the Church, and receiving anew the
Abrahamic covenant as it is administered in holy places. The present assembling of people
of Jewish ancestry into the Palestinian nation of Israel is not the spiritual gathering of Israel
or of Judah. It may be prelude thereto, and some of the people so assembled may in due
course be gathered into the true church and kingdom of God on earth, and they may then
assist in building the temple that is destined to grace Jerusalem's soil. But a political
gathering is not a spiritual gathering, and the Lord's kingdom is not of this world.” (The
Millenial Messiah)
Jesus continues to speak [in our day]: "Ye say that ye know that
the end of the world cometh; ye say also that ye know that the
heavens and the earth shall pass away; And in this ye say truly,
for so it is; but these things which I have told you shall not pass
away until all shall be fulfilled. And this I have told you
concerning Jerusalem; and when that day shall come, shall a
remnant be scattered among all nations; But they shall be
gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the
Gentiles be fulfilled" [D&C 45:22-25]. The true gathering of the
Jews to their homeland shall not occur until the day—yet
future—when the times of the Gentiles is fulfilled. (Millennial
Messiah, p.252, 254)
Concerning the temple in Jerusalem, Orson Pratt stated, "By and by there will be a Temple built at Jerusalem. Who do you
think is going to build it? You may think that it will be the unbelieving Jews who rejected the Savior. I believe that that which
is contained on the 77th page of the Book of Mormon, as well as in many other places, in that same book, will be literally
fulfilled. The Temple at Jerusalem will undoubtedly be built, by those who believe in the true Messiah. Its construction will
be, in some respects different from the Temples now being built. It will contain the throne of the Lord, upon which he will, at
times, personally sit, and will reign over the house of Israel for ever. It may also contain twelve other thrones, on which the
twelve ancient Apostles will sit, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel."[59]
Pratt, Orson (1877). "Building Temples". Journal of Discourses 19: 19–20. Retrieved 28 June 28, 2011.

More recently Bruce R. McConkie stated, "Who are those 'that are far off' who shall come to Jerusalem to build the house of
the Lord? Surely they are the Jews who have been scattered afar. By what power and under whose authorization shall the
work be done? There is only one place under the whole heavens where the keys of temple building are found. There is only
one people who know how to build temples and what to do in them when they are completed. That people is the Latter-day
Saints. The temple in Jerusalem will not be built by Jews who have assembled there for political purposes as at present. It
will not be built by a people who know nothing whatever about the sealing ordinances and their application to the living and
the dead. It will not be built by those who know nothing about Christ and his laws and the mysteries reserved for the saints.
But it will be built by Jews who have come unto Christ, who once again are in the true fold of their ancient Shepherd, and
who have learned anew about temples because they know that Elijah did come, not to sit in a vacant chair at some Jewish
feast of the Passover, but to the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836, to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. The temple in
Jerusalem will be built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 'They that are far off,' they that come from an
American Zion, they who have a temple in Salt Lake City will come to Jerusalem to build there another holy house in the
Jerusalem portion of 'the mountains of the Lord's house.'"[60]

The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man. Shadow Mountain. 1987. pp. 276–81.
The « Three Oaths of Solomon »:

The Three Oaths is the popular name for a Midrash found in the Talmud, which relates
that God adjured three oaths upon the world. Two of the oaths pertain to the Jewish
people, and one of the oaths pertains to the other nations of the world. The Jews for their
part were sworn not to forcefully reclaim the Land of Israel and not to rebel against the
other nations, and the other nations in their turn were sworn not to subjugate the Jews
excessively.
Among Orthodox Jews today there are primarily two ways of viewing this Midrash. A
faction of the Haredim who are strongly anti-Zionist often view this Midrash as not being
fulfilled, whereas the majority of the Haredim as well as Religious Zionists view it as
being fulfilled and maintained, and now obsolete. Both buttress their positions by citing
historic rabbinic sources in favor of their view.