Facts About Judea and Samaria That You Might Not Know About

Nadene Goldfoot                                                        

Judea and Samaria are the heartland of Eretz Israel.  The Jewish history started there. 

 Abraham left Ur (today located in Iraq) and migrated to Canaan to live among the 

Canaanite and Philistines of what would become the state of Judah.  

They settled in Hebron.

Hebron (Kiriath Arba) is located 18 miles south of Jerusalem.  The Hittites lived here before 

Abraham's time.  Abraham bought a plot of land from them which included the Cave of 

Machpelah which became his family burial plot.  A mosque stands there today.

Joshua gave  Hebron to Caleb of the tribe of Judah, one of the spies,  and it became a 

levitical city, one of 4 places of refuge. The other 3 were Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safed.   

King David reigned from Hebron for 7 1/2 years before moving the capital to Jerusalem.    

                                                                                   

 King Rehoboam (933-917 BCE), son of King Solomon, and his Ammonite wife, Naamah,  was the first 

king of Judah, formed in 933 BCE.  Judah was created out of the southern part of Israel after King Solomon

 had died.  Israel had divided into Israel and Judah because Solomon had been charging very high taxes and

 the people were unhappy as many were forced into labor to for Solomon's building projects.  When they 

broke apart, Judah, of the tribe of Judah,  kept Jerusalem as their 

capital. Most of the tribe of Benjamin was also a part of Judah as well as having absorbed the tribe of 

Simeon which was isolated in the extreme south.  

                                                                        

At the time of this split, Shishak of Egypt used the opportunity to invade the country and 

plunder the Temple. 

Jeroboam took over as king of Israel at the split and ruled from 933 to 912 BCE.  He was of the

 tribe of Ephraim, an Ephraimite.  and his job had been a superintendent of forced labor during 

the reign of Solomon.  Then he led the revolt against the burden imposed on the people by the

 monarchy.  His revolutionary movement was at first suppressed, and he had to take refuge in 

Egypt.  When Solomon died, he led the delegation of northern tribes to meet Rehoboam at 

Shechem.  They demanded changes in the system of taxation and forced labor.  

When their request was refused, the northern tribes declared their independence, their 4th of 

July, and annointed Jeroboam as their king.  The capital started with Shehem, but was later 

changed to Penuel in what became Transjordan and then finally to Tirzah.  

5 years after Jeroboam became king, 60 towns of Israel were ravaged by an Egyptian invasion.  

Jeroboam set up new shrines at Bethel and Dan with a similar cult but centering around the 

symbols of the golden calves.  Boy, did he miss the mark of what Moses had taught his 

people.                                                                

Golden calves!  Moses, born in 1391 BCE, was 80 when he went to Egypt to free the Israelites

from their bondage.  It would have been in about 1310 that  Moses started his lectures on their 

new Laws of their monotheistic religion started by Abraham.  Whatever was Jeroboam thinking 

of!  He had been trying to combat the influence of the Jerusalem Temple and had felt the 

competition.  Many of his people may have  gone over to live in Judah.  Prophets were furious 

with him for doing this and said he sinned and thus caused Israel to sin.  He was a good man to

recognize the need to stop their own slave labor and high taxation, but wasn't very bright about

what they were all about with their religion.  

King Omri,  founder of a dynasty,  established Samaria as the capital of Israel in 880 BCE 

on a hill that had been bought from Shemer.  

. It was 7 miles NW of Shechem (Nablus) and was on an isolated elevation of 25 acres. 

 Samaria is also used to mean the entire northern region of the central highlands.  

                                                                                       

My question is whatever happened to King Solomon, the wise?  Remember how he solved the 

dispute of 2 women over a baby?  He said to cut the baby in half and give each woman half, but

 the real mother screamed not to do that, and then he gave her the baby.  

He caused his empire to                                             

12 tribes of Israel

divide which led to their becoming weak which brought about the success of the Assyrians 

in  722  BCE to attack Israel and carry off most all the 10 tribes that lived there.  

When the Babylonians gained power over the Assyrians in 597 BCE, they attacked Judah.

Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple in 586 BCE and carried off much of the population.  

Those that wished were able to return in 538 BCE, freed by King Cyrus II of Persia (Iran). 

He had taken over the Babylonian Empire, which is how he came to the Jewish people.  He 

was  an enlightened king, and told these Babylonian Jews to go back and rebuild their temple.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were from Hebron.  Jews have lived here since the days of 

Abraham.  In 1890 there were 1,500 Jews living here.  In 1929, Arabs, instigated by the 

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,  massacred many of the town, then of 700, and those that  lived fled. 

30 families returned in 1931 but riots broke out again in 1936, and they could not return until 

after 1967's Six Day War.  Then, there were 38,310 people living in Hebron.  

Today there are 250,000 Arabs and 8,500 Jews living here.  

 "Israel has controlled the area since 1967, and as part of the Oslo process, Israel and the Palestinians signed the “Hebron Agreement” in which the city was split into two sectors: H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2, controlled by Israel. "

Jews have lived in Judah and Samaria for the past 4,014 years.  

Resource: http://www.jewishjournal.com/rabbijohnrosovesblog/item/the_cauldron_that_is_hebron_today_israel_journal_part_iv

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia