Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ARMY

The Israelite army developed through four successive stages: semi-nomadic bands, peasants’ militia, professional heavy infantry, and classic ancient Near Eastern chariot army. Despite these differentiations, the ideal remained an early one: the whole armed people, or every male “who drew the sword” (Judg. 8:10; 20:2). This idealized picture is concretized in the literature, both early and late, and receives special expression in 1 Chr. 27, , where David’s champions are made into officers over 12 monthly levies of 24 thousand men each. Such a portrayal, however, can hardly be accurate in light of other ancient armies. Thus the great conqueror Sargon of Akkad considered it significant that he could maintain a standing army of 5400, garrisoned and provisioned in palace. According to the historian Thucydides, the 5th-century Athenian expedition against Syracuse included 4000 native Athenian hoplites, 300 horse soldiers, and perhaps 45 thousand more troops from Athens’ allies. This was the largest Greek army ever assembled up to that time. The Israelites under Ahab contributed 10 thousand foot soldiers and 2000 chariots to the western alliance at Qarqar. This battle marked the zenith of Israelite military power, and resulted in the defeat of the great Assyrian army. The actualities of Israel’s army accord much more closely to these figures, and its history is correspondingly richer.

Semi-nomadic Origins

The army of Israel had its antecedents in the bands of Habiru marauders who appeared out of the Near Eastern steppe during the 3rd millennium b.c.e. These bands, led by clan chieftains such as Abraham and Esau, often disrupted settled life (as depicted in the Amarna texts), though they sometimes hired themselves out to, or worked with, local rulers (cf. Gen. 14).

Peasants’ Militia

During the sojourn in Egypt, and after the initial settlement in Canaan, the Israelite army became a kind of peasant militia; this army forms the backdrop to Joshua and Judges. Though the term “every man who drew the sword” is applied to this era, swords were rare and expensive. According to 1 Sam. 13:19-22 the Philistines were able to embargo the sale of swords to the Israelites at the outset of Saul’s reign. More common were the weapons of the poor: light javelins for throwing, bows and arrows, slings, and clubs or maces made from animal bones. Judg. 20:16 mentions an especially skillful cadre of Benjaminite slingers. Samson is said to have slain 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass; more common were maces made from the thigh bone of an ox or steer.

Facing the often superior numbers and arms of their more urbanized opponents, the Israelites relied on strategem and ambush to achieve victory, or they resorted to guerrilla warfare. Organization of this national militia was around local tribal chieftains and their respective bands. Overall command in any battle seems to have fallen to the charismatic leader of the moment, or the one in whose territory the conflict lay (cf. Deborah, Barak, and Gideon).

Professional Heavy Infantry

The later period of the judges witnessed the emergence of local strongmen surrounded by bands of freebooters or ruffians. These bands lived from the spoils of raiding, as in the case of Jephthah’s men, or from direct pay, as in the case of Abimelech of Shechem. In an apparent development on these bands, Israel’s first king, Saul, built a corps of ca. 400 retainers to meet the trained troops of the Philistines. Faced with Philistine military superiority, Saul’s private army would have improved its arms the same way guerrilla units have always done: by stripping the slain of their arms. Indeed, that Saul built and armed such a professional force is ample testimony to his military success. These troops had among them other smaller distinctions, such as the bodyguard (mišmaʿam; 1 Sam. 22:14) and the rāṣîm (“runners”), a category which appears at later stages of Israel’s history as well (1 Sam. 22:17; 2 Kgs. 10:25). These men provided their own arms from the spoils of battle. Weapons consisted of the typical, double-edged, Iron Age sword, used for stabbing or thrusting; heavy spears which could be wielded or thrust, or cast a short distance; and bows and arrows. Armor included shields, helms, and other items, such as greaves and breastplates. Saul’s men comprised a small, highly mobile force ideally suited to fighting in the hill country of Israel. Given the melee tactics of the day, such a corps could serve as a strengthening core for the always unsteady militia, or they — or a group of them — could be concentrated at a single point of the enemy line to force a breach. Saul’s death at Mt. Gilboa seems to have come about when the Israelite levies fled before the Philistine chariots, leaving Saul and his men to retreat up the mountain for a last stand.

David began his career as a professional soldier (ʾîš milḥāmâ) in the service of Saul (1 Sam. 16:18), from which position he rose to command a mercenary troop. Driven from Saul’s court out of jealousy over his battlefield successes, David formed his own mercenary band of ca. 400 men, based on disaffected Israelite and Judean elements and his own family members (1 Sam. 22:1-2). To these he added over time foreign mercenaries, the 600 men of Gath under his friend Ittai, and the Cherethites and Pelethites. These forces probably never numbered more than 2000 or 3000, but they stood by David through thick and thin, and secured his throne against a succession of bloody popular revolts. Like Saul’s army, David’s consisted of smaller elite divisions: the šālîšîm, or “three-ers,” a group of between 30 and 50 elite warriors who probably fought as special three-man squads; the term may have originated as a designation for three-man chariot teams (driver, archer, shield-bearer) in the ancient Egyptian army (cf. Exod. 14:7; 15:4). Besides the šālîšîm were the gibbôrîm, or “heroes”; the mišmaʿam, or “bodyguard”; and the foreign contingents mentioned above. David appears to have had little use for chariotry, as he hamstrung most horses captured in battle (2 Sam. 8:3-4). Instead, he built a force similar to Saul’s, though greater in number, and used it successfully in the hill country of Israel and the Transjordan. It is important to note that David’s private army, unlike Saul’s, comprised large numbers of foreigners: men whose primary loyalty was to David, and not to Israel.

Organization of the infantry was carried out along the lines of tens (squads), fifties (platoons), hundreds (companies), and thousands (battalions), as elsewhere in the ancient Orient. The units of thousands probably had their antecedents in the units by which the ancient Semitic tribes organized themselves (Judg. 6:15; 1 Sam. 10:19). Such structure and organization were probably helpful in regularizing the levies, to a degree, and for use in siege warfare, where large numbers of infantry were necessary, and where these had to be committed to battle in a disciplined and ordered fashion.

Overall command had fallen since the time of Saul to a commander-in-chief. Saul appointed his uncle, Abner, to this position; in David’s army the position was successfully held by David’s ruthless but courageous nephew, Joab. Nevertheless, the king was always the titular head of the army, and if he wanted to maintain his throne, he often had to be its active battlefield leader. This status derived from the ancient role of the king as the warrior-chieftain of his people. Kings who relinquished military power often faced revolts led by members of their own houses. The revolts in David’s later reign may be attributed, in part, to the fact that he had long since relinquished military command to the sons of Zeruiah. The coups by Zimri, Omri, and Jehu indicate that the position of commander-in-chief could become its own political power base, from which a militarily weak or inactive king might be deposed.

Classic Ancient Near Eastern Chariot Army

David’s son and successor Solomon transformed the army into a chariot army, with its concomitant expenses: professional trainers and drivers (pārāšîm; 2 Sam. 8:4; 1 Kgs. 10:26), and the upkeep required of thousands of horses. Whether the new emphasis on chariotry led to the creation of the kind of warrior nobility (maryannu) in Israel on which the chariot corps depended elsewhere in the Near East is an open question. The cost of the horses, and their training, could only be borne by such a class, in the absence of onerous taxes exacted by the crown for such purposes. The successful revolts against Solomon in both Edom and Aram-zobah are testimony to the ineffectiveness of chariotry in that hilly country, and the secession of the 10 northern tribes under Rehoboam provides further evidence of the weakness of chariotry in holding this territory. Chariotry could be massed wheel-to-wheel across vast plains, such as the Jezreel, and used to face the great powers of the Near East, as was successfully done at Qarqar in 853. Chariots served as mobile firing platforms for archers, and as shock weapons to stampede and crush the massed infantry. If the infantry broke and ran before a chariot charge, they were run down and run over. Assyrian texts describe the iron-ribbed chariot wheels splattered with blood and feces, and Mesopotamian and Egyptian reliefs depict the severed heads and limbs of those caught under the hooves and wheels. Cavalry was almost nonexistent. The later Assyrians pioneered its use, and Alexander the Great commanded an outstanding cavalry corps. Still, the much later introduction of the stirrup was necessary for the cavalry to come into its own.

As the battle at Qarqar demonstrates, the development of the chariot did not make the use of infantry obsolete. Indeed, infantry were required in support of the chariotry, and remained important in siegecraft, where chariots had little use. In the later chapters of Kings we still read of the elite infantry designations in use since the time of David and Saul: the rāṣîm and the šālîšîm, both of which played an important role in Jehu’s revolt (2 Kgs. 10:25).

Bibliography. D. G. Schley, “Joab and David: Ties of Blood and Power,” in History and Interpretation, ed. M. P. Graham, W. P. Brown, and J. K. Kuan (Sheffield, 1993), 90-105; “The Šālîšîm: Officers or Special Three-man Squads?” VT 40 (1990): 321-26; “Soldier,” ISBE 4 (Grand Rapids, 1988): 564-65; W. von Soden, The Ancient Orient (Grand Rapids, 1994), 82-86.

Donald G. Schley

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ARMY

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)