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TheJebusites (/ˈdʒɛbjəˌsaɪts/;Hebrew:יְבוּסִי,romanized: Yəḇusi) were, according to theBook of Joshua andBooks of Samuel from theHebrew Bible, aCanaanite tribe that inhabitedJerusalem, calledJebus (Hebrew:יְבוּס,romanized: Yəḇus,lit. 'trampled place') before the conquest initiated byJoshua (Joshua 11:3,Joshua 12:10) and completed byDavid (2 Samuel 5:6–10). According to somebiblical chronologies, it was conquered in 1003 BC.[1]
A majority of scholars agree that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel and reflects a much later period.[2]
1 Chronicles 11:4 states that Jerusalem was known as Jebus before this event. Scholars sometimes dispute the identification of Jebus with Jerusalem.[3]
The identification of Jebus with Jerusalem[4] has been disputed, principally byNiels Peter Lemche. Supporting his case, every non-biblical mention of Jerusalem found in theancient Near East refers to the city as "Jerusalem". An example of these records are theAmarna letters, several of which were written by the chieftain of JerusalemAbdi-Heba and call Jerusalem eitherUrusalim (URU ú-ru-sa-lim) orUrušalim (URU ú-ru-ša10-lim) (1330s BC).[5] Also in the Amarna letters, it is called Beth-Shalem, the house of Shalem.[6]
The Sumero-Akkadianname for Jerusalem,uru-salim,[7] is variously etymologised to mean "foundation of [or: by] the godShalim": from Semiticyry, "to found, to lay a cornerstone", and Shalim, the Canaanite god of the setting sun and the nether world, as well as of health and perfection.[8][9][10][11]
Lemche states:
There is no evidence of Jebus and the Jebusites outside of theOld Testament. Some scholars reckon Jebus to be a different place from Jerusalem; other scholars prefer to see the name of Jebus as a kind of pseudo-ethnic name.[12]
Theophilus G. Pinches has noted a reference to "Yabusu", which he interprets as an old form of Jebus, on a contract tablet that dates from 2200 BC.[13]
TheHebrew Bible contains the only surviving ancient text known to use the termJebusite to describe the inhabitants of Jerusalem; according to theGenerations of Noah (Genesis 10), the Jebusites are identified as Canaanites, listed in third place among the Canaanite groups between thebiblical Hittites and theAmorites.
Before modern archaeological studies, mostbiblical scholars held the opinion that the Jebusites were identical to the Hittites, which continues to be the case, though less so.[14] However, an increasingly popular view, first put forward byEdward Lipiński, professor ofOriental andSlavonic studies atKU Leuven, is that the Jebusites were most likely an Amorite tribe; Lipiński identifies them with the group referred to asYabusi'um in acuneiform letter found in the archive ofMari, Syria.[15] Lipinski also suggests that more than one clan or tribe bore similar names and thus the Jebusites and Yabusi'um may have been separate people altogether.[16]
In the Amarna letters, mention is made that the contemporaneous king of Jerusalem was namedAbdi-Heba, which is atheophoric name invoking aHurrian goddess namedḪepat. This implies that the Jebusites were either Hurrians, were heavily influenced by Hurrian culture, or were dominated by themaryannu (a warrior-class elite).[17] Moreover, the last Jebusite king,Araunah, mentioned in1 Chronicles 21:15, bore a name generally understood as based on the Hurrian honorificewir-ne.[18]
Richard Hess[19] shows four Hurrian names in the Bible's conquest narrative: Piram, king of Jarmuth and Hoham, king of Hebron (Joshua 10:3), and Sheshai and Talmai, sons of Anak (Joshua 15:14) with Hurrian-based names. Zev Farber believes that the Jebusites were unrecognized Israelites. According to Farber, it explains why the Judahites were confident in delivering the corpse ofAdoni-Bezek, a foreign enemy king, to Jebus in Judges 1:7. A similar incident occurred in 1 Samuel 17:54, where David deliversGoliath's head to Jebus, which occurs before the city's conquest. In addition, the Jebusites are portrayed in a more positive light than the residents ofGibeah in theLevite's concubine narrative. Farber believes this was anti-Saul propaganda, with Gibeah being the city of Saul and Jebus being thecity of David.[20]
The Hebrew Bible describes the Jebusites as dwelling in the mountains beside Jerusalem inNumbers 13:29 andJoshua 11:3. In the narration of theburning bush in Exodus 3:18, the "good and large land, flowing with milk and honey" that was promised toMoses as the future home of the oppressedHebrews included the land of the Jebusites.[21] According toJoshua 10,Adonizedek led a confederation of Jebusites and the tribes from the neighbouring cities ofJarmuth,Lachish,Eglon andHebron against Joshua but was soundly defeated and killed. However,Joshua 15:63 states theJudahites could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem ("to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah").Judges 1:21 portrays the Jebusites as continuing to dwell at Jerusalem, within the territory otherwise occupied by theTribe of Benjamin.
According to 2 Samuel, the Jebusites still controlled Jerusalem at the time of King David, but David wished to take control of the city. Understandably, the Jebusites contest his attempt to do this, and since Jebus was the strongest fortress in Canaan, they gloat that even the "blind and lame" could withstand David's siege.[22]
According to the version of the story in theMasoretic Text, David manages to conquer the city by a surprise attack, led byJoab, through the water supply tunnels (Jerusalem has no natural water supply except for theGihon Spring). Ever since its discovery in the 19th century,Warren's Shaft, part of a system which connects the spring to the city, has been cited as evidence for the plausibility of such a line of attack.[23] The account in1 Chronicles 11:5 mentions the advantage of a speedy attack but does not mention use of the water shafts, and the claim could be a scribal error; theSeptuagint version of the passage states that the Israelites had to attack the Jebusites "with their dagger[s]" rather than "through the water shaft". 1 Chronicles states that the inhabitants of Jebus forbade King David from entering Jerusalem shortly after he was crowned king. Joab went up first and took the city and became chief and captain of David's armed forces.[24]1 Kings 9:20-21 states thatSolomon forced the surviving Jebusites to becomeserfs.
Another Jebusite,Araunah (referred to asOrnan by theBooks of Chronicles) is described by theBooks of Samuel as having sold histhreshing floor to King David, which David then constructed an altar on, the implication being that the altar became the core of theSolomon's Temple.Araunah means "the lord" in Hurrian and was loaned into Hittite, and so most scholars, since they consider the Jebusites to have been Hittites, have argued that Araunah may have been another king of Jerusalem;[25] some scholars additionally believe thatAdonijah is a disguised reference to Araunah, theר (r) having been corrupted toד (d). At many periods the letters are virtually indistinguishable. The argument originated from Cheyne, who proposed the reverse. The narrative is considered by some scholars to beaetiological and of dubioushistoricity.[22]
It is unknown what ultimately became of theseJebusites.According to the "Jebusite hypothesis",[26] however, the Jebusites persisted as inhabitants of Jerusalem and comprised an important faction in theKingdom of Judah, including such notables asZadok the priest,Nathan the prophet, andBathsheba, queen and mother of the next monarch,Solomon. According to this hypothesis, after the disgrace of a rival Elide faction of priests in the struggle for succession to David,[27] theZadokites became the sole authorizedpriests, so a Jebusite family monopolized the Jerusalem clergy for many centuries before becoming sufficiently attenuated to be indistinguishable from otherJudeans or Judahites.
Elsewhere in the Bible,[28] the Jebusites are described in a manner that suggests that they worshipped the same God,Elyon, as the Israelites (e.g.,Melchizedek). Further support for this theory comes from the fact that other Jebusites resident in pre-Israelite Jerusalem bore names invoking the principle or god Zedek (Tzedek) (e.g., Melchizedek andAdonizedek). Under this theory theAaronic lineage ascribed to Zadok is a later, anachronistic interpolation.[29] A Jebusite is mentioned in theActs of Barnabas as accompanying his martyrdom.[30]
According to classicalrabbinical literature, the Jebusites derived their name from the city of Jebus, theancient Jerusalem, which they inhabited.[14] These rabbinical sources also argue that as part of the price of Abraham's purchase of theCave of the Patriarchs (Cave of Machpelah), which lay in the territory of the Jebusites, the Jebusites made Abraham grant them acovenant that his descendants would not take control of Jebus against the will of the Jebusites, and then the Jebusites engraved the covenant into bronze;[14] the sources state that the presence of the bronze statues was why the Israelites were not able to conquer the city during Joshua's campaign.[14]
Therabbis of theclassical era go on to state that King David was prevented from entering the city of Jebus for the same reason, and so he promised the reward of captaincy to anyone who destroyed the bronzes – Joab performing the task and so gained the prize.[14] The covenant is dismissed by the rabbis as having been invalidated due to the war the Jebusites fought against Joshua, but nevertheless David (according to the rabbis) paid the Jebusites the full value of the city, collecting the money from among all the Israelite tribes, so that the city became theircommon property.[14]
In reference to 2 Samuel 5:6, which refers to a saying about the blind and the lame,Rashi quotes amidrash which argues that the Jebusites had two statues in their city, with their mouths containing the words of the covenant between Abraham and the Jebusites; one figure, depicting a blind person, representedIsaac, and the other, depicting a lame person, representingJacob.[14]
The politiciansYasser Arafat[31] andFaisal Husseini,[32] among others, have claimed thatPalestinian Arabs are descended from the Jebusites, in an attempt to argue that the Palestinians have a historic claim to Jerusalem that precedes the Jewish one. ProfessorEric H. Cline of theGeorge Washington University Anthropology Department asserts that a general consensus exists among historians and archeologists that modern Palestinians are "more closely related to the Arabs of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and other countries" than to the Jebusites, and that they lack any significant connection to them.[33]Johns Hopkins University ProfessorWilliam F. Albright questioned "the surprising tenacity" of "the myth of the unchanging East" and rejected any assertion of continuity between the "folk beliefs and practices of the modern peasants and nomads" and "pre-Arab times."[34]
Jerusalem, the Holy City By Stephen J. Binz.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Jebusites".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.